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You are here: Adult Programs >> Team Building / High Ropes >> Benefits

Designed to Develop
SELF-ESTEEM | TRUST | TEAMWORK

Deer Hill Ranch's team building programs provide adults with the opportunity to experience "learning by doing." We use proven techniques and an outdoor environment to stimulate the development of interpersonal and social skills that can enhance:

• Self esteem
• Trust
• Communication
• Team work
• Collaboration
• Cooperation
• Accountability

The goal of our programs is to improve the social development and resiliency of adults through a series of exercises and debriefing sessions that are geared to empower participants, teach awareness, help members be supportive of each other, and enable them to discover how to cooperatively make group decisions and carry them out.

Programs consist of low and high ropes course challenge events and specialized games for trust building and group problem-solving. These activities teach kids how to be more inclusive, cooperative and respectful of others. After each initiative, debriefing discussions help participants gain insight into their responses and determine how their behaviors affect the group. Facilitators then discuss how these same behaviors can impact their everyday life. One teacher noted that after a DHR team building with his class, "cohesiveness was much greater and the biggest thing was that the kids bonded. The kids were less on their guard...they worked together really well for the rest of the year."

Outdoor education was first developed from the Outward Bound movement in the late 1960s. Close to 100 studies concluded that programs that practice outdoor/adventure education "stimulate the development of interpersonal competencies, enhance leadership skills, have positive effects on adolescents' senses of empowerment, self-control, independence, self-understanding, assertiveness, and decision-making skills (Hattie, Marsh, Neill, & Richards, 1997). Our "Challenge by Choice" high ropes programs are derived from Outward Bound, wherein participants wearing belay harnesses climb a pole to each event. With instruction from the leader and support from their peers, they slowly learn that they can accomplish more than they originally believed. Participants begin to develop a deeper understanding of their role in determining the outcomes of their endeavors.

All programs at Deer Hill Ranch are custom-designed through a needs assessment process to address the communication, trust and teamwork needs of each client. We also offer follow-up facilitation training programs for group leaders in which we teach the same skills the facilitators will use the day of your program.