How can young people support their peers in protecting their health?
A training course has been launched for young students from the city of Palermo, who will play the role of peer-counselors thanks to the Peer to Peer Players project, coordinated by CESIE in collaboration with the Associazione Identità Sviluppo Integrazione (I.S.I.) Onlus and with the Department of Psychological, Pedagogical and Training Sciences of the Università degli Studi di Palermo.
The young students will have, at the end of the training course, the necessary skills to support their peers, schoolmates, in problems related to the protection of their psycho-physical health.
The participants of the course are students belonging to two schools in the historical centre of Palermo: the Istituto Magistrale Statale “Regina Margherita” and the Liceo Scientifico Statale “Benedetto Croce” which, together with the partnership network of the project, will carry out all the planned activities.
The training course, conducted by a team of trainers, psychologists and web experts, through non-formal methodologies and the theoretical approach of Positive Youth Development, aims at enhancing and developing in young people skills related to the use of the web and psychoactive substances and deepens all those issues related to the difficulties that teenagers may encounter during their lives. Starting from the main concept of empathy, it is possible to discuss, in a two-way way, issues such as violence and cyberbullying, the extremist behaviours and the loss of the reality dimension, the violation of privacy and security, the use and abuse of substances sponsored by the web, the risks of the web, hoaxes, emulations and the deep web, by sharing opinions and experiences and strengthening both professional and transversal skills.
The students who are taking part in the training course have applied autonomously and spontaneously to take on the role of peer-counselors, following an internal call for applications in the two schools that are collaborating in the project. Afterwards, selection interviews have been carried out, to select the future peer-counselors, so that they will soon be able to support their peers. Their mission will be performed through the activation of a service, face to face and online, which will collect the requests of the student users, anonymously and free, through an interactive platform.
The young peer-counselors will be constantly supervised by web experts and psychologists who will meet them periodically to carry out their work in the best possible way.
The aim of the Peer to Peer Players project is to promote psychosocial well-being among young people and to strengthen their knowledge about risk behaviours regarding the use of the web and the use of psychoactive substances.
About the project
Peer to peer players is a two-year project, funded by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers – Drug Policies Department.
Partners
Project partners are:
- CESIE (coordinator);
- Associazione Identità Sviluppo Integrazione (I.S.I.) Onlus;
- Dipartimento di Scienze Psicologiche, Pedagogiche e della Formazione dell’Università degli Studi di Palermo.
For further information
Read more about the project.
Contact cooperazionelocale@cesie.org
