The aim of the current study is to investigate the impact of counselling-based training on online peer support by comparing the interventions of trained peer supporters as opposed to non-trained peer supporters. Two independent raters analysed 746 support posts published during a period of one year at the "Student to Student" online peer…

Students helping students have become an increasingly important educational concept over the last 20 years. While the popularity and prevalence of these types of programs have grown considerably, there has been little effort to evaluate their effectiveness. The authors advocate for counselors to use a scientist practitioner approach to…

Trained healthy, elderly residents of retirement community in facilitative communication skills. Tested before and after training were 12 residents who revealed significant increase in self-perceptions of helpfulness. Also found significant increase in abilities to discriminate between helpful and unhelpful ways of responding to people with…

Two studies evaluated effects of peer counseling training on interpersonal helping skills and attitudinal reactions of 60 rehabilitation clients assigned to experimental or control groups. Participants reacted positively to peer counseling training and demonstrated significantly higher levels of basic interpersonal helping skills than did the…

As counseling programs are being strained by the ever increasing needs of today's students, other methods of helping the students are being used. The peer helper program is one method that is optimistically being tried. Information is presented here on the background, training procedures, and evaluation methods (both subjective and objective) of…

Although anecdotal evidence supports the usefulness of peer helper programs and related training, there is little published quantitative data on the effectiveness of peer helper training. The purpose of the present study was (1) to examine whether or not training for a peer helper program provided student mediators with the essential skills needed…

A survey of counseling services at 156 college campuses indicated that most offered peer counseling activities. Results are discussed in six sections: (1) peer counselor roles; (2) problems encountered; (3) quality of peer counselors and clients; (4) peer counselor training; (5) institutional constraints--funding; and (6) summary and implications.…

Describes a process used by the Downtown Alternative School, Toronto, Canada, to resolve conflicts among the students there. Offers the perspectives of the teachers, students, parents, and observers on the effectiveness of the approach. (TB)

Peer helping has become a popular method of dispute resolution in many secondary schools. However, evaluation of such programs is usually anecdotal in content. In order to add to the quantitative data on the effectiveness of peer helping, a peer helping effectiveness scale was designed and implemented; the results of this evaluation effort are…

Peer helping has recently been adopted by many schools, but use of these services remains mixed. The different ways in which peer helpers can be selected are described and examples of effective programs already in place are offered. The two types of cognitive processes used to evaluate advertising campaigns--automatic and strategic--are discussed…

Describes the implementation of a peer helping program at a middle school and its evaluation. Discusses evaluation of program which included pre- and posttraining surveys of trainees (n=22) and untrained comparison group (n=22) on acquisition of helping skills, personal development, and changes in self-concept, as well as surveys of parents,…

This document describes the Peer Assistance and Leadership (PAL) Program, a peer helping program developed by the Austin Independent School District in Austin, Texas. It explains how selected high school students are trained to work as peer facilitators with younger students either on their own campus or from feeder junior high or elementary…

Academic advising by faculty members has often been ineffective. Peer advising systems that employ peers as academic counselors may successfully address student criticism of faculty advising systems. Peer systems capitalize on the primacy of peer influence, provide an economical delivery system, and are available and accessible to students. These…

An intervention program was implemented to reduce absences, stimulate responsibility for assignments, and increase participation in extracurricular activities among disengaged ninth-grade students (N=18). Older students served as role models and peer mentors as they sought to establish that freshmen could control their own success or failure in…