Deep Wells Trust (DWT) was established in 1996 to support the mature long-term unemployed with making the transition into further training and/or paid employment. After twelve years of running full-time six week Training Opportunities (TOPS) courses for Work and Income NZ, we are now exploring new options to enable our organization to continue what we believe is valuable work in our community. Currently, DWT has limited community funding with which to run our courses in 2010 and we are seeking expressions of interests from other organizations either wanting to develop pilot programmes in partnership with us and/or utilize our service.

Our personal growth programmes are designed to encourage people to:

·         Develop and/or regain motivation, direction and the ability to achieve clear, realizable goals.

      ·         Gain self-awareness in order to overcome personal barriers to change.

·         Take responsibility for their daily lives in the belief that lasting change is possible.

·         To improve their ability to communicate with people in order to be more effective at home, in work and in their communities.

DWT advocates the use of group process to bring together disconnected and disheartened individuals. The DWT facilitation model is humanist-based and client-focused. Initially, our work was influenced by the ideas of Carl Rogers (founder of client-centered or Rogerian counseling) and Stephen R. Covey (author of ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’), more recently we have drawn strongly on other models such as Life Coaching and Positive Psychology in our work. By generating trust and self-honesty the group process allows learning to grow from the group itself, helping our clients to develop greater self-awareness, a resulting shift in beliefs and attitude and a regained sense of hope and momentum.

Because we have been running our programmes for twelve years, we have developed a wide range of activities and resources which can be adapted to meet a wide range of individual and/or groups needs.  Accordingly, our programs can be run as part-time or full-time courses depending on client and stake-holders’ requirements. We are able to develop courses which target particular client groups. In recent years, we have run transition to work courses and one-to-one coaching, mental health recovery courses as well as evening and weekend courses for working people seeking direction and motivation. Given that our core clients are those with the most serious personal issues - such as mental/physical health, addiction and abuse issues - we have found that those who have stayed with our programs for several months have experienced the most enduring changes.