Peer to Peer Players’ challenge: promoting peer support

Monday 8 April 2019

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Peer to Peer Players’ challenge: promoting peer support

8 April 2019School

Asking for support, satisfying curiosity, seeking simple advice: this is possible thanks to the platform of the Peer to Peer Players project, addressed to students from two high schools in the city of Palermo: the Istituto Magistrale Statale "Regina Margherita" and the Liceo Scientifico Statale "Benedetto Croce".

The Peer to Peer Players platform is designed for young students of the two schools involved, who, anonymously, have the opportunity to ask for support on issues that aim at improving their psycho-physical well-being.

The service is managed by a group of peer-counselors with the support and supervision of a team of experts, always in respect of anonymity. The peer-counselors initially applied spontaneously and, after being selected, undertook a training course in order to fulfil the role and be available to give support to their peers.

The project aims to promote the psycho-physical well-being of young people through a peer support service that is supervised by experienced adults. Specifically, the project was created to promote the correct use of the web and to combat the use of psychoactive substances, which are harmful to health.

The young peer-counselors, once the training was over, were involved in a series of periodical meetings, both face to face and online, and info days at their schools, during which they explained to their peers the objectives of the project and of the counseling service that was activated, describing the platform and its functioning.

In addition to the peer counseling service, during the info day at the schools, an ideas contest was presented for the creation of a game App for smartphones and tablets, launched by the project: all high school students in the city of Palermo, aged from 15 to 18 years, will be able to participate in the contest by submitting their idea, which will be judged by a committee of experts. The two best ideas will be used in the app and the winners will receive one tablet each as a prize.

The development of the game App is based on the results of the research carried out before the start of the support service. This research phase studied the risk behaviours of young people through the administration of a questionnaire to a sample of about 1000 students between 15 and 18 years old attending the two schools in the historical centre of Palermo. The questionnaire analysed the lifestyle of young people and aimed to collect data on the knowledge and behaviour of young people regarding the use of the web, the use of dangerous websites and the use of psychoactive substances harmful to health.

 The results will be shared and discussed during further meetings with young students from high schools in the city of Palermo.

About the project

Peer to peer players is a two-year project, funded by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers – Drug Policies Department.

For further information

Read more about the project.

Contact cooperazionelocale@cesie.org

CESIE ETS