Students Helping Students

A Guide for Peer Educators on College Campuses

Fred B. Newton, Steven C. Ender

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780470630907
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Student Life

This second edition offers a practical training guide for college students who serve as leaders, tutors, counselors, or advisors for their peers. This thoroughly revised and updated volume contains a fundamental discussion on student growth and development and provides learning objectives and self-discovery exercises to help student leaders with tasks such as tutoring, student orientation, residence hall advising, crisis intervention, coaching, and more.

Students Helping Students includes:

• Updates on the most current research and the latest advances in technology
  
  

• A revised model that contains service learning and student retention programs
  
  

• The results of two intervention strategies: the Health Behaviors Assessment and the College Learning Effectiveness Inventory, which focus on the topics of wellness and academic success
  
  

• Descriptive overviews of peer programs addressing sexuality, safety, violence reduction, residence life, online peer connections, and more
  
  

Praise for the Second Edition of Students Helping Students

"This new work remains the definitive standard in the field. It should be on the bookshelf of every student affairs professional and is an important tool for preparing peer educators for providing service."—Ernest Pascarella, professor and Mary Louise Petersen Chair in Higher Education, University of Iowa

"The second edition of Students Helping Students teems with useful material that can be thoughtfully applied by peer helpers. The what, so what, and now what framework reflectively guides the reader to self-discovery and thoughtful practical applications. Being a peer helper is a high-impact learning experience made intentional through the pages of this fine book."—Susan R. Komives, professor of college student personnel, University of Maryland and president, Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education

CHAPTER 1

Peer Educators on the College Campus

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After completing this chapter, you will be able to

1. Explain to others the role of college students serving as peer educators.

2. List several helping positions on college campuses that are staffed by peer educators.

3. Describe how your personal experience has demonstrated important principles of a helpful relationship.

4. Understand and be able to employ an active process model of learning that includes three elements—sensing, personalizing, and acting.

5. Explain the importance of role modeling within the helping role.

6. Define how the terms peer educator, role model, mentor, and professional may have similarities and differences.

The Case of Joe Freshman

Joe Freshman arrives on campus the summer before his enrollment and an ambassador gives him a tour of the facilities and a general overview of what it is like to be a student here. Joe also stops by the Financial Aid office to find out about his application for funding and talks with a financial advisor, who answers his questions. Later, he moves into the residence hall where his resident assistant helps him get set up with residence life. Joe enrolls and takes a First Year Experience Orientation class, where he meets in a weekly seminar with a recitation leader. Part of the Orientation class assignment is to complete a career online assessment; a career specialist helps interpret his results. At mid-term, needing help with his college algebra, Joe makes an appointment with a tutor. Joe is determined to avoid the “freshmen 15,” so he signs up for a personal trainer at the campus recreation center. If he needs health advice he has access to a SHAC (student health advisor), a SHAPE (sexual health awareness peer educator), or a SNAC (student nutrition peer educator). And, heaven forbid, if Joe has a problem and is accused of breaking the academic honesty code, resulting in an appearance before a student judiciary, he would be assigned a HIPE (Honor and Integrity Peer Educator) and may be told to complete an ABC (Assessment for Behavior Change) with a peer mentor.

Joe still needs to complete his first semester and he already has had contact with at least thirteen peer educators on campus. The potential for Joe is that he will meet at least twice as many fellow students serving in peer educator roles before he leaves campus. His first vocabulary word in college is ubiquitous, as in “peer educators are ubiquitous.” Peers in trained support roles will be a very big part of his education!

This story about Joe might be hypothetical, but the examples of peer educators in this paragraph are authentic. The use of peer educators in the college environment has grown substantially over the past two decades. The involvement of undergraduates in peer assistance roles on college campuses has been identified in more than 75 percent of all higher education institutions (Brack, Millard, & Shah, 2008; Carns, Carns, & Wright, 1993). On today’s college campuses, peer educators are involved in providing a wide range of supportive service activities. These services, cutting across a variety of peer educator roles, include providing information, explaining policies and procedures, orienting new students, making referrals, offering specific help strategies for problem-related counseling issues, implementing social and educational programs, enforcing rules, providing academic advising, facilitating community development, offering tutoring, helping with financial management, performing diversity training, and providing crisis intervention services.

Peer educators are valuable for an academic institution because they are experienced with the campus, they are economical to the budget, they can relate to the situations of fellow students, and they are effective. The student serving as a peer educator also benefits; the peer educator learns new skills, gains relevant practice experience, and contributes to the community. For some, it will last a year or two, and for others, it will initiate new career objectives and lifelong personal change. In either case, we believe you will find the peer educator role to be both challenging and rewarding. If you take up one of the many peer educator positions open on modern college campuses, you will have the opportunity to make positive and, in some cases, significant differences in the lives of other students. We believe you will find the personal rewards of serving as a peer educator substantial—and the responsibilities as well. In short, we believe this training program and your subsequent experience as a helping person will have a very powerful impact on your own life, allowing you to explore and extend yourself to make the most of your own best qualities.

Reflection Point 1.1: You, as a Peer Helper

Describe why you have chosen to pursue a peer educator position on your campus.

What personal characteristics do you possess that indicate that you are, or can be, a helping person?

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PEER EDUCATION

The use of undergraduates in helping roles on college and university campuses has a long and rich history. Students in residence halls have served as resident assistants, proctors, hall counselors, and advisers since the early 1900s (Powell, Pyler, Dickerson, & McClellan, 1969). Student tutors have been assisting their peers as a direct way to provide academic assistance since the colonial period of American history (Materniak, 1984). In the 1950s, a peer mentoring program, as a didactic education strategy, was implemented at the University of Nebraska. The success of this program led to the expansion of peer educating as a mechanism for improving retention and academic success (Sawyer, Pinciaro, & Bedwell, 1997; Terrion & Leonard, 2007).

During the past twenty years some significant changes have occurred in the use of peer educators. First, as we have already noted, there has been a proliferation in the use of peer educators into nearly every aspect of college academic and student service. Second, along with increase in the number of roles for peer educators comes broader use of multiple delivery methods. In addition to traditional one-on-one contact, there has been an increase in peer educators’ involvement with organizational strategies, classroom and group programs, and Web sites and electronic communication. Finally, in the past decade more activist forms of peer movements have begun in response to issues of harassment, violence, and other trauma on campus. Such counter movements to make the campus safer and more responsive as a community were due, at least in part, to an increase of shootings and acts of terror (Birchard, 2009). Peer educators are now playing a significant leadership role in campaigns to provide support groups, nonviolence, and better safety procedures for reducing trauma, connecting students to service, and developing more supportive campus communities.

Exercise 1.1: Peer Educators on Your Campus

Identify the types of peer educator roles on your campus.

In these roles, what types of strategies are used for providing assistance: one-to-one contact, working with groups or organizations, online or electronic medium, or some combinations of all of these?

Although peer educator involvement is possible in nearly every student service and academic department, our intent in this book is not to cover the job description and content information for all the ways peer educators may serve on a college campus. Instead, we focus on the basic skills for working effectively as a peer helper, no matter the specific capacity. This book is titled Students Helping Students, and in a broad sense that is exactly the purpose of this book: to provide preparation, skill training, helpful resources, and thoughtful discussion for students working as peer educators. We intend this book to be both a primer for preparation and a handbook of resources for those in the wide range of service roles and responsibilities mentioned in the paragraphs above.

The first step in this training process is to define key terms and concepts that will be used throughout the book.

DEFINITIONS

You have already seen that many terms seem synonymous with “peer educator.” To name a few: peer counselor, ambassador, student coach, peer mentor, student assistant, class recitation facilitator, tutor, resident assistant, and orientation leader. Each of these descriptive names reflects the various nuances and characteristics of the roles and responsibilities taken on by the peer educator. Peer educator is a comprehensive and generally unifying term that encompasses the many other descriptive terms just given. Peer educators are students who have been selected, trained, and designated by a campus authority to offer educational services to their peers. These services are intentionally designed to assist peers toward attainment of educational goals. The following questions clarify further the concept of students helping students as peer educators.

What Is Meant by Students Helping Students?

Who is the student who helps and who is the student recipient of help? Are these upper class or more advanced students assisting younger and more novice students? Does this include graduate students? The defining characteristic of a helper is someone who is in some ways more knowing, more experienced, and more capable in a designated area of service than the people being helped. But class status, age, or years of experience is not as important as the effectiveness of the peer educator in providing service. For example, those who are motivated and capable of providing service might make more effective peer educators than those with higher status or more experience but less motivation to help. Most importantly, effectiveness can be enhanced through preparation and training. This book is designed to provide you with knowledge, skills, and personal awareness to prepare and enhance your effectiveness as a peer educator.

What Is Helping?

Along with helping, terms such as facilitating, mentoring, advising, instructing, education, aiding, assisting, leading, and counseling are used. These terms convey the specific function of a peer educator. But in truth, there are many shades of difference between the student helping with orientation, the student as a tutor, the student as mentor for achieving an outcome, or the student as an advisor. One basic characteristic of a peer educator is that of provider. A provider may offer a service of a specific nature; this can be information, support, or facilitating action such as decision making or task accomplishment in the best interest of another person. A helping relationship implies that there is value added as a result of the encounter. The peer educator is a helper.

How Is a Peer Educator Different from a Professional Helper?

A professional differs from a peer educator in level of training, preparation, experience, and by job designation. The professional must be qualified by meeting standards of competence and training established by the institution, the discipline, or other authority. Their titles such as counselor, professor, dean, adviser, or director denote both the status and level of responsibility. One important aspect of your training as a peer educator will be to learn where the level of your competence to assist others ends and where the knowledge and skills of the professional must take over to provide the optimal learning experience for another student. We cover the importance of personal boundaries and knowing limits of peer service as well as the skills and knowledge necessary for making appropriate referrals and ethical behaviors in Chapters Nine and Ten.

Reflection Point 1.2: Peer Educator versus Professional Responsibilities

What are the primary differences between the type of assistance you are going to provide to other students and the assistance given to students in your sponsoring agency by your professional counterparts?

WHY ARE PEER EDUCATORS EFFECTIVE?

What the Research Says

There are several reasons peer educators produce positive results in assisting student success for a variety of outcomes. One explanation may be that the peer educator is slightly ahead in experience and awareness of what a student seeking help may be going through but not so removed as to seem unable to identify and understand his or her situation (Lockspeiser, O’Sullivan, Teherani, & Muller, 2008). Illustrating this idea, one student noted that relating with her peer educator was like “being able to relate to someone who has been through similar experience but still understands and won’t judge me for needing input on what may seem unimportant.” Indeed, sensitive topics such as dating relationships, health and sexuality, or personal finances may be discussed without the embarrassment of talking to a “more” adult figure (Good, Halpin, & Halpin, 2000; Sawyer et al., 1997). That students feel more compatible with a peer educator who has similar learning styles and who approaches the world from a similar generational perspective is exemplified in the Beloit College Mindset List, a yearly publishing of the events that have occurred and affected the lives of a contemporary cohort of students (see http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/). The world events, the newest technologies, popular entertainers, sports events, movies, music, well-known public figures, major political and social issues, wars, economic trends, fads and fashions, and even the popular lingo are ways that mark the times and frequently separate the generations. The underlying concept is that students seek advice from and are influenced by the expectations, attitudes, and behaviors of their peer group. Peer influence in many situations may be stronger than that of adults such as teachers, parents, and other experts (Mellanby, Rees, & Tripp, 2000).

Peer educators have been demonstrated to be effective helpers when provided systematic training in interpersonal communication and relationship skills (Carkhuff, 1969; Daniels & Ivey, 2007; Terrion & Leonard, 2007). Though effective human relations skills are useful in helping students with specific levels of need to explore and resolve questions of information, resource, support, and normal developmental transitions, they do not replace the more in-depth exploration of emotional, mental, or behavioral concerns that require expertise of a professional. A peer educator can be trained to meet some needs, but some needs require additional support.

What Exp...