Jessica_Lee by Freestyle Academy

Written and Photographed by: Jessica Lee

peer Counseling

Dedication I am dedicating this book to the peer counseling program as well as the Mountain View High School Counseling department. These outstanding people have helped so many without asking for anything in return.

Mountain View High School sign

Lockers that line the hallways of Mountain View High

Acknowledgements

I would like to awknowledge adn thank Freestyle Academy for making this book possible. Without Freestyleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s advice and help, this book would not be the success it is today. I also would like to thank Annie Ashmore, Megan Joseph, and Mr. Kahl. These three people were crucial in the making of this book.

Table of Contents Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Chapter 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 Chapter 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 Chapter 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Chapter 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 Chapter 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Chapter 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Chapter 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Chapter 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Chapter 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 6

Foreword 8

As I walk down the hallways of Mountain View High, I heard snippets of conversation that echo around. “What did you get on the test?” and “What is she wearing?!” disrupt the silence. The pressures and school eventually get to you sooner or later. Whether it be by gossip or by competitiveness, high school will eventually wear you down. Of course, high school always has its ups and its downs. One of the most valuable things you learn from high school is not how you celebrate your achievements, but how you cope with your failures. Failures can mean anything from depression to losing against a rival school. Some deal with these dark periods of times by smoking in the back parking lot. Others are added on to the list of hundreds of teens who have committed suicide. Most teens do not seek the help they so desperately need. Since troubled teens don’t take the initiative, teachers make the decisions for them. How?

Well, teachers recommend students that they are concerned about to a program called peer counseling. Peer counseling matches the student with a peer counselor, who will guide him or her to a better path. As the author of this book, peer counseling has changed my life by letting me delve deeper into the issues the surround teens and myself as well. It has helped me understand that talking to anyone about your issues, even a stranger, is better than keeping it bottled up inside. I hope you will gain a new perspective on peer counseling or gain a new insight as I have from this amazing program.

Introduction Along with the growing rates of obesity in America comes the myriad of eating disorders. According to CBS News, more than half a million of American teens have an eating disorder. Moreover, most of these teens donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seek out treatments for the problem. Treatment options would consist of visiting a trained therapist or counselor. Therapists and counselors are trained in psychology and know much about the human mind and how it works, but do they have the experience or the empathy to help patients? Peer counselors, on the other hand, are not counselors trained from college, but from experience. Peer counseling is a student-to-student relationship in which one student is the peer counselor and the other is the counselee. Unlike therapists and counselors, peer counselors do not suggest what the counselee should do, but rather let the counselee find their own solutions through questions.

Peer counseling is a relatively new trend and is present in other schools such as University of California, Berkeley. Just last year, it has spread to the Mountain View High School community. So far, the program has been highly successful in helping students of Mountain View High in a variety of issues from depression to anxiety. Peer counseling, I believe, should be and will be part of our future communities because it has given empowerment to the adults and teens of society.

The Mountain View High School logo

A Student is texting Two Mounntain View High students talking.

Chapter 1 The peer counseling program started at Mountain View High just last year. A couple of seniors and Mr. Kahl, an English teacher at Mountain View High, initiated this program to help better the school’s community.

Although it is a relatively new program to Mountain View, peer counseling has been present in many organizations. According to Independent Living Institute, “the concept has been in existence for many years...” eer counseling was based on a similar concept to various organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous and the Canadian Paaraplegic Association,

the Cerebral Palsy Association, and many more. They all use peer support or peer counseling as a technique to help their patients. Even though peer counseling is an age-old idea that has been used a number of times, it has not been used in a school setting until recently. Since this trend is so new in Mountain View High, how is it so successful?

Chapter 2 Peer counseling has many outreach strategies to spread the word across campus. They create videos for daily announcements, create presentations on common teen issues, and have been shown in the Oracle.

will decide who is accepted. The recruitment system works like this. Once a year Mr. Kahl will send out a mass email to all the students of MVHS asking for students who are willing to become peer counselors. After students have filled out the application, Mr. Kahl

I, as a student of MVHS, joined because I wanted a way to directly help the community of MVHS. Peer counseling is a means to make an impact that will last a lifetime and possibly even longer. Annie Ashmore, a new peer counselor, states, “I just thought peer counseling would be a really good way to give back to the school and the community. I’ve suffered from low self-esteem, in general, in the past. I’ve just really want to help people who are going through similar problems I went through and meet others.”

Chapter 3

Quote “A life isn’t significant except for its impact on other lives.” -Jackie Robinson

Chapter 4 18

Chapter 5 On a Saturday afternoon, I checked my email. Not expecting anything interesting, I quickly scanned through my inbox for the usual spam. But today, there was something new: an email from Mr. Kahl about my acceptance to peer counseling. Excited, I almost forgot to read the rest of the email. It said that there would be two training sessions held and that I would have to attend them in order to become a peer counselor. What could this be?

All peer counselors must undergo at least a two day training session. There, students learn the underlying principles of peer counseling, which are active listening, open-ended questions, and, most importantly, not giving advice. Characteristics of active listening includes making eye contact and occasionally nodding or smiling. Peer counselors are trained to really listen to a person’s needs or wants. Peer counselors often use open-ended questions by avoiding questions that require a “Yes” or “No” answer. They also avoid using “Why” questions. Why? Because it tends to put the counselees on the defensive and they may feel as if the counselor is not on their side.

Lastly, counselors never give advice. This has all to do with empowerment. Personal empowerment is the ability to choose one’s actions. A person with empowerment believes he or she is capable, despite the negative experience he or she may have had. Empowerment is not an easy feat to achieve especially in the type of society we live in today. Peer counselors help students achieve personal empowerment through peer support and the techniques listed above.

Chapter 6 How do peer counselors learn all of these new techniques and how to deal with a variety of issues? Mr. Kahl, who teaches peer counseling, leads an activity in which peer counselors in training pair up with each other and practice using these skills through role playing. Megan Joseph, a peer counselor says, “[Mr. Kahl’s methods of teaching is] more hands on than him lecturing to us, we get to be in depth, we get to learn about how to be peer counseled or how to peer counsel, and he does a lot of group activities so it’s not just him teaching us everything.” Mr. Kahl also uses other methods where the students learn the subject, then teaches it to the class. These strategies in teaching the key principles of peer counseling are very effective in helping students learn how to become good peer counselors.

“We can never get a re-creation of community and heal our society without giving our citizens a sense of belonging.”Hunter Cambell

Learning these new skills has changed my perspective on how conversations should be. Before peer counseling I would constantly interrupt my friends in the middle of their stories. I was not truly listening to them and believed that my story was paramount to theirs, so I would interrupt them. Often times, I would lead my friends off topic before the speaker had finished talking. Although I still have this bad habit, I, now, tend to wait patiently before speaking. For Annie Ashmore, it has “...helped [her] become a better listener and it’s helped [her] appreciate the types of people who are at school.” Peer counseling also teaches you not to “judge a book by its cover...” as stated in this quote by Annie Ashmore, ”...there are so many people at school who are struggling with things and just the knowledge that this is happening and the knowledge that you can prevent that has definitely changed [her] as a person. When you see someone in the hallway, you aren’t going to know like what their whole story is unless you peer counsel them.” In addition to patience and judgment, the program also teaches you empathy. Empathy is the ability for someone to “step into someone shoes.” Basically it is the ability to understand. It is a very important trait to have in life. Empathy is one of the main traits you will develop once in peer counseling. Through the role playing activity Megan Joseph has experience empathy as shown in this quote: “ I got to experience like being the person being counseled. I got to talk about my problems of my own. I can see the other person’s point

Chap ter 7

of view. When I eventually talk to them, I’ll understand where they are coming from.” Peer counseling not only betters society by assisting others overcome obstacles, but it also helps the peer counselors, themselves, gain a new insight about the society we live in. 22

Chapter 8 Peer counseling is not just confined in Mountain View, California, it has spread across the nation. In Smyrna, Delaware, where Antonio Lambert, a drug addict, is now helping others to do the same. Antonio Lambert managed to escape his predicament by texting a friend, who help talk him through his addiction. Promptly after, Lambert checked himself in to the hospital. This clearly demonstrates the power of a person, of similar age, helping others in overcoming adversity. Now, Lambert is a prominent peer training, who gives classes in Delaware and across the country. He has helped numerous people deal with their setbacks. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Peers are living, breathing proof that recovery is possible, that it is real,â&#x20AC;? said Larry Davidson, a mental health researcher at Yale (Carey 1). Peer counselors have been through the same situations as the counselees are facing. selor has overcome it, the counselee can too. 24

Chapter 9 26

Many have questioned the effectiveness of peer counseling. Some believe peer counseling has a negative side in that it uses untrained students to help deal with serious situations that should be dealt with by adults. Megan Joeseph admits that some many students don’t participate in peer counseling because it can scare counselees. She states, “I know I probably would not do [peer counseling] because I’m really shy and don’t like to talk...and be like I need help and get a peer counselor so.” On the other hand, Annie Ashmore believes that it is a confidentiality that scares students away. She states, “...people might not wanna share that type of information with peers they see everyday. Just because they don’t know and don’t have experience with it.” In addition to this, Megan believes there are also internal structural issues with peer counseling. She believes that there should be more training sessions because two might not be enough and many cannot make it to both sessions. She also believes that peer counseling needs a better way of communicating with potential counselees and counselors. Many believe peer counseling is effective to an extent. Perhaps an improved peer counseling will emerge as the program gains more experience.

Indeed there are negative aspects to peer counseling, but in contrast, peer counselors encourage the counselee’s honest expression of emotions. Peer counselors want to learn how the client feels and needs. Because they encourage empowerment, peer counselors respect the counselee’s right to make his or her own decisions. They promote problem-solving skills for both the peer counselor and counselee (“The Volunteer Peer Counselor” 1). The relationship between peer counselor and the counselee is one of trust and respect, unlike the relationship of adult peer counselors, which assume the parental role with counselees because of the age difference. Peer counseling has been viewed as a cost-effective alternative compared to the traditional adult counselor program. Recent research suggests that peer counseling “...can reduce costs, and in 2007, federal health officials ruled that states would bill for the services under Midicaid...” (Carey 1). This makes peer counseling more accessible to students and adults of lower incomes and by doing so peer counseling can aid thousands of other people. Despite the popular opinion that students aren’t ready to handy such serious situations, peer counselors are trained to refer the counselee to an expert if the situation is very dire, such as suicide attempts. This shows just how mature and able students are.

n o i s u l c Con

Bibliography Ashmore, Annie. Personal interview. 9 March 2012.

We cannot assume what is best for the counselee, whether it be adult counseling or peer counseling. A peer counselor’s role is to aid counselees in the present and future. The ultimate goal is to help them feel confident in their own abilities to successfully address their own problems. Peer counseling has improved society by spreading the one trait many of us lack, empowerment. It gives us a solution to the negative aspects of society and helps to shape our future in human interactions. A peer counselor is always there for you through your ups and your downs. Peer counselors don’t judge and most importantly let you be the master of your own future.

Brown, Dale Susan. “Empowerment Through Peer Counseling.” The International Center for Disability Resources on the Internet. 2005. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. Carey, Benedict. “After Drugs and Dark Times, Helping Others to Stand Back Up.” The New York Times. 19 Dec. 2011. Web. 18 Mar. 2012. Joseph, Megan. Personal interview. 14 March 2012. Sisco, Patricia. “Peer Counseling: An Overview | Independent Living Institute.” Independent Living Institute. 1992. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. “The Volunteer Peer Counselor.” Panhandle Crisis Center, Inc. Web. 20 Mar. 2012.