Need Advice? Maybe Your Peers Can Help

Need Advice? Maybe Your Peers Can Help

In spite of our best wishes and efforts, life isn’t always bunnies and roses. Sometimes things happen that get us down. So who would you rather turn to for advice, help, and a shoulder to cry on? Someone who has no real idea about how you’re feeling or whom you fear might judge you or punish you? Or someone who knows exactly what you’re going through?

A peer advisor is someone like you who understands your perspective about school, work, family challenges, money issues, or many of the hundreds of other things that might happen in your life to stress you out. Some schools and work places have peer advisor, peer support, or peer counseling programs in place for just such a reason: so their students and/or employees have a place to turn just to vent and be heard.

Well-run peer support programs with dependable staff advisors can be extremely beneficial to students and adults alike. Their goal is to promote health, well-being, and safety through peer education and, when necessary, referrals to reliable experts. Peer support programs in middle schools and high schools generally train a cross-section of students to act as helpers and listeners for their fellow students.

Student peer advisors can take many roles, from welcoming new students, to acting as conflict mediators, 

tutors, and advocates for students with disabilities and/or special needs, to making classroom presentations on teen issues like bullying, family challenges, drinking and drug use. The benefits of peer support programs include a safer, more positive student environment; healthier students and staff, both mentally and physically, with lower overall stress levels; and a smarter, more efficient use of school and community resources.

Peer support programs don’t benefit only those who turn to them for assistance – they are also great learning experiences for those acting as the peer advisors or counselors. By becoming peer advisors, students already showing leadership potential can develop communication, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.

The best programs put peer support volunteers through a careful selection and training process in order to increase their likelihood of success. Their goal is to alleviate and prevent problems before they develop into traumas or tragedies. Peer advisors are taught to understand when a fellow student just needs to blow off some steam and when they may be in real trouble, so that they can involve trained professionals if and when the need arises. Classroom instruction, role playing, and specific skills training are some of the ways students prepare to become peer advisors.

The best student peer advisory programs incorporate:

• Structured programs with stringent guidelines
• Completion of action plans
• Thorough training, including detailed record keeping
• Intervention instruction
• Procedural forms and evaluations
• Capable adult advisors who know when to step in 
• Student outreach to destigmatize the program and invite those who need it to use it

The best candidates for peer advisors are students who are dedicated, empathetic, and committed to helping others. Problem-solving skills and the ability to maintain their peers’ confidentiality – in other words, no blabber mouths! – are also essential. Peer advisory programs work because students are often more willing to share the details of their lives with a fellow student before going to a teacher or other adult, regardless of how sympathetic or supportive they may be. Our human nature is to be drawn to those who are like us – and other students are like us.

For more information about starting a peer support/advisor/counseling program in your school, here are a few resources:

• Youth Helping Youth: A Handbook for Training Peer Facilitators by Robert D. Myrick and Tom Erney
• A Guide to Peer Counseling by Jewel Rumley Cox 
• Peer Assisted Learning by Keith Topping

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ALBERT MENSAH is a champion of opportunity and achieving one’s dreams. Rising from humble beginnings in Ghana, Africa, Albert has become one of the world’s leading student motivational speakers, regularly presenting to groups such as FCCLA, FFA, FBLA, DECA, 4-H, and numerous school assemblies and student council groups. Visit his website to book him to speak at your student assembly, career day, or state or national teachers’ conference.