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Our Story
Our story starts in the glam-rock 1980s with two kiwi legends, Lyndsay and Glenda Simpkin, who had a passion for people and for the wild spaces of Aotearoa. Both of them were youth workers and keen adventurers, so they knew the life-changing power of taking young people into the Great Outdoors.
They looked high and low to find a youth agency that shared their vision but, when none could be found, they did what any kiwi with a great idea would do. They erected a shed and voila, Adventure Specialties Trust was born.
Fast forward almost 40 years and Adventure Specialties Trust is one of New Zealand’s leading outdoor education and adventure therapy programme providers. We have over 20 full time staff based in two centres and we have won numerous industry awards. So if you are ready for a life changing adventure, jump in, join us on an adventure!
40 YEARS
Leaders in Outdoor education and Adventure Therapy programmes.
20 FULL TIME STAFF
Experts in their fields
2 CENTRES
In Auckland and Christchurch. Winning a number of industry awards.
Creditation
Why choose Adventure Specialties Trust?
We invite you and your team to step into the wilderness with our passionate and capable crew of outdoor and “life” adventurers. We will take you or your group on adventures that will unearth the potential of each and every participant.
Helping people conquer obstacles that may appear too hard, too immense or too overwhelming for mere humans such as ourselves is what we’re all about.
Our job is to get along side and provide the motivation, leg up or shoulder required to cultivate character and extend horizons. Because there are few more transformative powers than experiential learning in the great outdoors.
Whether you’re with our Christchurch team, filling your lungs with crisp South Island air, or submerging yourself into the gushing central North Island streams with our Auckland team, each of our programmes provide the experiences and mental tools people need to feel empowered, emblazoned with courage to take control of their lives and relationships. We know they’ve got it in them.
How do we know this?
Heck, we’ve been providing adventure and wilderness experiences across New Zealand’s rocks, rivers, mountains, caves and coasts for more than 30 years.
We are leading the way in Adventure Therapy, with an untarnished safety record, you can be assured that your group is facing each challenge in very capable hands.
Through our relational, down to earth approach, we aim to meet each individual wherever they are at. Taking the time to understand each person’s needs so that we can tailor a programme that will unearth and maximise both the individual and group’s collective potential.
So what are you waiting for?
Our Vision
Lives Inspired By Adventure!
Our Mission
To respond to community needs by providing purposeful adventure, which facilitates therapeutic outcomes and personal growth
Our Values
We are guided by our Christian faith, which places the love of God at the centre of all that we do. This is expressed by the following values:
WE ARE HOPEFUL.
Change is possible for everyone. We are optimistic, we are confident and we use a holistic, strengths-based approach which supports hauora, “the winds of wellness.”
WE ARE STRONGER TOGETHER.
We practice mahi tahi. We encourage each other and our participants. We grow community partnerships and collaborate to achieve shared goals.
WE ARE ADVENTUROUS.
Outdoor adventure will transform lives. We use healthy adventure and a connection with te taiao, the natural world, to nurture growth and learning.
WE ARE INCLUSIVE.
Everyone is welcome. We honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We practice equity, respect and manaakitanga.
WE ARE SAFE.
We embrace physical, emotional, social and cultural safety. We continually invest in our team and our resources to ensure that everything we do is high quality.
Social Impact Report 2019
We are proud to have produced our inaugural Social Impact Report. Evaluating our outcomes is an integral part of providing successful programmes and ensuring they make a difference in the lives of our participants. We ask participants to complete an evaluation of their experience. This feedback is the data we have drawn on in terms of understanding our social impact.
The inaugural Social Impact Report is a culmination of input, support and advice from many fabulous colleagues world-wide, especially The Collaborative Trust, Youth Health and Research team in Christchurch who acted as consultants. Our data indicates that we are achieving positive results in our intended outcomes and given a greater understanding of how well we are doing so we can celebrate our successes, consider changes to improve our service, and better articulate what it is that we do on our programmes. Looking ahead, we plan to tell our story even better. We will do this by revising our intended outcomes and developing more comprehensive data collection tools.
Click on the link to download our 2019 Social Impact Report.
“Always remember: you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think.”
— A. A. MILNE