Personal Learning & Development 

PLD Provides Counseling and Facilitates Learning for Healing and Wellbeing

Our mission is to help people in the big transitions of life that inevitably involve grief & loss, including: death of a loved one, divorce, couples-conflict, major career change, long-term disability related transitions, recovery from addictions and relocation-resettlement.  Our primary goal is to help people experience healing and wellness as they seek and find new purpose following such losses.

Help and Hope for All Who are Hurting?

Our Catholic Christian faith is the motivational center and source of our effort to help and encourage but we do not require conversion of those who come to us for help.    Our counseling and group facilitation reflects continuing professional development in multicultural-counseling theory and practice.  Like Catholic Charities, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development andCaritas International, whose missions we support and look to for guidance, we seek to help without regard to creed, race, gender, or ethnicity and without the cultural encapsulation that would impede such help.

What We Do

PLD provides counseling & guidance, facilitation of instructional workshops, seminars & support groups, individual instruction, tutoring, mentoring, referral, acquisition assistance for books & learning materials, and tuition and fees assistance for courses, programs and counseling.

Healing Self by Helping Others

Having witnessed that people make great contributions to their own healing by helping others and that frequently those who have received help in working though their own losses want to provide such help to others, an important part of "what we do" is to assist individuals to discern and pursue a helping vocation or mission.  This may be as simple as selecting a volunteer opportunity or as complex as establishing a nonprofit organization.

What's New?

From Nonprofit to Fee-based Counseling and Human Services Innitiative

Update on PLD's transition from nonprofit to a fee based counseling and human services initiative:  Initially PLD was formed to fund administrative costs and other support expenses generated in order to provide the pro bono counseling and educational services described above.  All such funds to this point have been provided by PLD founder Paul Duffy.  As PLD becomes a fee-based service provider we will work to establish the Personal Learning and Development foundation to fund scholarships for individuals or groups seeking our services who cannot afford the fee.

Antenor Cyril, Haitian Outreach... "providing such help to others."

Empowering compassionate people to provide help to others is a big part of the mission of PLD.  Antenor Cyril  is an example of someone who, having been helped through PLD, has sought a way to help others as he has been helped.  Accordingly,  PLD is continuing in encouraging and assisting him in  launching the ministry/non-profit Austin HOPES.  Austin Haitian Outreach Project for Evangelism and Support will connect immigrant Haitian families with supportive parishes and social services as they seek to resettle in the U.S. and help their communities back in Haiti.

1. Haiti Earthquake News Watch: Antenor's interview with Austin's KEYE TV News -http://weareaustin.com/search-fulltext?nxd_id=45932
2. Catholic Relief Services Blog with Haiti Updates: http://crs-blog.org/

Update on Antenor Cyril:  Following the airing of Antenor's interview, anonymous donors contacted PLD offering assistance to help Antenor travel back to Haiti to visit the family he had not seen in 8 years, though he had been sending much of the income he earns in the US back to Haiti to support them.  He made this trip and remained in Haiti for the month of August 2010.  Since returning he is making arrangements to find donors here in the Austin to sponsor the children of his hometown parish Notre Dame de Lourdes - Solon, Haiti because a parochial education offer the clearest hope for Haiti's children.

Lola King

Lola joined Personal Learning and Development. See the "About Us" page for more.

JustFaith and Social Justice

PLD founding Counselor  Paul L. Duffy, MEd, LPC was motivated to establish a nonprofit initiative to promote social justice after he co-facilitated a 30 week course of JustFaith beginning September 2008 and ending May 18, 2009.  JustFaith strengthened PLD's focus on helping individuals and groups to develop their commitments and cacpacities to help others.  What is Just Faith doing currently?  See their website: http://www.justfaith.org/about. 

The Annual Harvest of Justice Conference

PLD recommends participation in the annual Harvest of Justice conference which brings together advocates of social justice in the Austin community.