The present study is the first empirical research in Hong Kong to evaluate a peer career counselling programme consisting of a 3.5-day training and a school-based service project. Using a quasi-experimental design, the evaluation was based on the Career Readiness Scales ratings at three waves of data collection. Results showed that the programme…

The use of peer education has been well documented within the discipline of health promotion, but not within the youth mental health domain. This paper describes an evaluation of an innovative schools-based peer education training programme that involved preparing young people to deliver a mental health workshop to their peers. Participants…

Universities frequently offer support programs to assist first-year students with the transition from school to the university. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of different mentoring styles on mentee academic performance after 1 year and 2 years of study. Participants consisted of 417 psychology students who started their…

Peer Resources is at the heart of positive youth development. Trained youth serving in roles such as mentor, tutor, mediator, leader, and educator can change the norms of a school and community. Utilizing people as resources is an important concept to embrace. During the last seven years, peer mentors have reduced the drop-out rate of 16- and…

Teaching has long been considered an isolated profession with little opportunity for collaboration. A major task for school leaders is to create improvement from within the school. Teachers are a valuable resource and each one possesses expertise in strategies and methodologies that can be a benefit to others. This action research explored the…

Previous research and retention interventions have been primarily targeted towards the freshmen, first-year experience (Gardner, Pattengale, & Schreiner, 2000; Pattengale & Schreiner, 2000) and yet, sophomores are a uniquely vulnerable group with increasing levels of dissatisfaction and attrition (Boivin, Fountain, & Baylis, 2000).This article…

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…

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…

Compared a 6-session, peer-led smoking intervention program for high school-age youth (n=93) to an identical program led by adults. Results showed a significant difference in the number of cigarettes smoked by students in both peer-led and adult-led groups when compared to the control group. (RJM)

This evaluation report describes a program designed to reduce substance abuse among students by establishing a comprehensive peer program in the middle schools (grades 6 through 8). The background of the project is reviewed, five important aspects of a peer helper program are listed, and three intervention strategies of peer assistance programs…

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…

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,…

A description and evaluation of the Baltimore Youth Advocate Project (YAP) is provided in this report. This project attempted to find out whether, to what extent, and with what results certain children could actually be diverted from the juvenile justice system. The project provided coaching and counseling services to pre-delinquent and…

Discusses the motivating factors, organization, training process, problems, and keys to success of a peer counseling program at an inner city Chicago high school. Student counselors are seniors recruited from psychology classes, who receive training, supervision, and support from the school social worker and psychology teachers. (MBR)

This report evaluates the second and third years of conflict resolution programs that were established at both the elementary and secondary levels during the 1991-92 school year. The programs emphasized peer mediation, in which students in conflict meet with a pair of students trained in mediation skills. The mediators attempt to open…