Training Peer-counsellors Helping Teenagers Make Responsible Decisions
How to orient the youngesters towards informed and responsible choices while increasing the skills of youngsters in supporting their peers?
Peer To Peer Players aims to foster the psychosocial well-being of young people by implementing a peer to peer support system whose purpose is cultivating dialogue and mutual trust.
In these months, project partners have worked and keep working to plan activities which will be carried out with the students of two secondary schools located in Palermo city centre: Benedetto Croce and Regina Margherita.
Partners are now carrying out a research aimed at collecting data on the habits of young people attending the aforementioned schools. The results will be analysed and used to create a map of risky behaviours that may affect youth well-being.
The next step is to select and train a group of students of the schools participating in the project. Psychologists and web experts will prepare groups of young people willing to become peer-counsellors, i.e. trained specialists on issues related to a conscious use of the Internet and substance abuse. Peer-counsellors will support and give advice to all the students who will apply for this service.
The protagonists of Peer to Peer Players are young people. They will become peer-counsellors of their fellow students who want to learn about or ask for support on several issues such as promoting their own well-being, preventing the use of psychoactive substances and using the Internet in a responsible way.
The idea behind the project is to foster healthy lifestyles amongst young people by creating a peer support system, so as to help teenagers look after their psychophysical and social well-being, using a positive methodology. Therefore, we should be able to prevent antisocial behaviour by enhancing their participation and strengthening the services available at local level and within the schools participating in the project, in the light of a systemic collaboration.
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: