By Kate Jackson
 
Peer educators are addressing campus alcohol abuse and students are listening.

The stories are increasingly familiar:

• At the University of Oklahoma, a 19-year-old freshman died after binge drinking at a fraternity party. He consumed so much alcohol—more than 15 drinks in two hours—that his blood level was five times the legal limit.
• A 19-year-old woman, described by police as having as many as 40 drinks at a fraternity party at Colorado State University, died less than two weeks before a freshman pledge—also under the legal drinking age—died of alcohol poisoning at the University of Colorado.
• A Virginia Tech student—a general engineering major—spent a night drinking and never woke up the next morning.
• A 20-year-old fell to her death from a dormitory window at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Her blood alcohol level was 0.22%.

Similar tragedies are making headlines in papers across the nation in alarming numbers. College students are dying to drink, and campuses are desperate for a solution. Numerous efforts are being taken to combat alcohol poisoning and abuse, and while a broad range of tactics is essential, one of the most effective strategies is also one of the simplest: peer education.

In a sense, it’s a strategy of fighting peer pressure with peer pressure. Students trained as peer educators can get through to students who turn a deaf ear to messages delivered by individuals outside of their social environment. In the tragic instances of alcohol poisoning described above, peer educators could have been the vanguard that saved lives.
Imagine a campus party that’s gotten out of control. A well-trained peer educator who is both able to recognize alcohol poisoning and isn’t afraid to call for help can prevent a tragedy. That, says David Hellstrom, MA, education director of the BACCHUS (Boost Alcohol Consciousness Concerning the Health of University Students) and GAMMA (Greeks Advocating Mature Management of Alcohol) Peer Education Network, is “education translated into real action.”

Among the numerous solutions proposed, peer education has been acknowledged by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), which, says Drew Hunter, MPA, president and CEO of the BACCHUS and GAMMA Peer Education Network, is now funding research to look at how peer education works and how it impacts student behaviors.

A Movement Is Born

It’s a hot topic at the moment, but the peer education movement is more than a quarter-century old. Gerardo Gonzalez and Tom Goodale, students at the University of Florida, recognized a growing need on campus for alcohol awareness and abuse prevention and forged an effective response by founding BACCHUS, a first-of-its-kind student leadership organization that catalyzed the peer education movement.

The program captured the attention of campuses across the country, and in 1980 the organization, which became known as BACCHUS of the United States, Inc., began offering the peer education training and educational materials for which it is now known. Five years later, fraternity and sorority students were addressed by a new branch, GAMMA, sparking the organization of peer education efforts in campuses nationwide. As the organization grew in scope, its geographic boundaries expanded beyond the United States, and in 1990 a new name reflected this evolution: The BACCHUS and GAMMA Peer Education Network.

Now, more than 1,000 active affiliates in the United States not only provide peer education about alcohol abuse prevention but also offer programs pertaining to problems that may sometimes exist separately but are often linked to alcohol abuse. The scope of the organization grew, says Hunter, largely in recognition of the impact alcohol abuse has on so many other aspects of a young person’s life, hence the inclusion of comprehensive programs aimed at preventing violence and ensuring sexual health and safety. The organization provides the educational materials and training, and the campuses take that information and tailor it to whatever specific issues they want to address at the campus level, explains Hunter. That, he adds, can be done very formally by trained peer educators who provide structured programs or in a less formal manner by peers who engage other students about the issues in everyday settings and activities and provide a forum for discussion.

The organization’s members are primarily college- and university-based peer education programs whose strategies vary from campus to campus. There’s no formula for the programs, explains Hunter. “It would be hard to find two that do the same thing or even call themselves by the same name.” In all cases, however, he says, it’s students getting together out of a desire to create a healthier and safer campus and community. For a student group to be recognized by the national organization, a campus must provide a faculty or staff advisor and officially recognize the student group. The network provides a leadership structure for these academic organizations, offering a national conference, workshops, educational materials, a monthly publication, and a variety of resource publications and training materials.

Its goal is to help students do a better job addressing critical issues. To meet that objective, it offers an accredited training program called Certified Peer Educator training, a 13-hour skills-based program used to develop effective peer support skills. It teaches what Hellstrom describes as the core skills involved in peer support: educational, listening, and confrontation skills; referral strategies; and cultural competency.

In addition, several times per year the network sends campuses campaigns with programming manuals and other educational materials they can use and adapt to their own needs. Early in the year, it disseminates Alcohol Awareness Week materials, runs the Great American Smokeout for colleges and universities, and distributes an impaired-driving prevention program. In the second semester, it organizes activities for Sexual Responsibility Week, and later in the year offers a Safe Spring Break program. And in recognition of the headline-grabbing issue of alcohol poisoning, it’s developed special educational materials addressing prevention efforts, both for general student bodies and specifically for fraternities and sororities. The organization operates three different Web sites from which affiliate members can download easy-to-duplicate programs and activities, as well as programming manuals. For every topic, numerous examples are provided of programs successfully used by a variety of campuses.

The network’s programs are based on original research as well as principals of research efforts sponsored and carried out by well-respected groups such as the NIAAA. To capture the attention of its prime audience, it presents this research in a manner most palatable to students.

“We target the hardcore educational materials that are needed but write them in a manner that’s appealing to the young adult population,” says Hunter. Educational materials typically are either very technical or much too basic, so the college audience can extract little that’s useful, he says. “We write our materials with the idea that the audience is intelligent, engaged college students.” Because these programs challenge students, he believes they’re more effective and are thus the most widely used in higher education.

The Peer Concept

The concept behind peer education is based on a simple truth: People tend to accept information best from people like themselves. Research, says Hunter, has shown that students respond well to information provided by their peers. Furthermore, adds Hellstrom, studies have shown that they also tend to retain and use information more when it’s brought to them by people considered to be peers. It’s an approach that’s well-suited to target high-risk populations and can be used to engage and influence special interest groups.

“Whether it’s student athletes, fraternities and sororities, students with disabilities, or gay and lesbian students, or any other group the campus wants to embrace, it can recruit and train students from within those special populations to address the special needs and concerns of the individual groups,” Hellstrom explains. “If you put trained students who are involved with and representative of the students they’re serving, they can have a much greater impact in those groups than can outsiders.”

Do as I Say and as I Do

Part of the job of an effective peer educator is to be a stellar role model. “We hope that our peers take the information that we try to teach and promote and incorporate it into their own lives so that the positive messages that we want our students to have can be seen in action in the lives of their peers around them,” says Hellstrom. The approach, then, is dynamic rather than static. “Instead of having education provided in the classroom or through posters, for example,” he says, “now we have peers who are in social situations at parties or in different groups with their friends and fellow students who are making positive choices themselves. That message then becomes something that’s lived as opposed to just heard.” In this way, he observes, through role modeling, students take on the positive and healthy behaviors that are modeled.

What makes a good peer educator? “The role modeling aspect is of the utmost importance,” explains Hellstrom. “They can’t merely teach the issues without living them themselves, so our first step is to make sure that people who call themselves peers are in fact making healthy choices themselves.” Also important, he says, is to have strong social networks such as those created through participation on athletic teams or in Greek organizations and, of course, strong communication skills.

Peer educators are not to be confused with counselors—they don’t attempt to analyze or assess other students. Instead, they provide education and perspective, engage students on the issues, and, when necessary, provide referrals for counseling. “When they come across students whose issues are clearly leading them toward addiction, our students are trained to be referral agents to get at-risk students to seek the help of the campus counselor or community-based resources,” says Hellstrom. “We do not expect our students to be junior counselors because clearly they’re not adequately trained for that role. They’ll do some confrontation and many of the presteps to counseling, but their goal is to get people in for help, not to counsel them.”

Part of knowing one’s role as a peer educator, says Laurel Okasaki, the network’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Impaired Driving Prevention Initiatives intern, is knowing when an issue is beyond the scope of your knowledge and knowing when to ask for help from your advisors.

Peer education isn’t meant to be a total solution but rather part of a broader approach to alcohol abuse prevention. It’s not a single magic bullet, says Hunter, but a highly effective tool. In addition, he notes, there need to be additional weapons such as campus environmental policies and judicial sanctions for bad behavior. The network is also a forceful advocate for strong campus policies and efforts to reduce underage students’ access to alcohol.

“We view the students as educators, activists, and change agents on the campus,” says Hunter. Highly trained peer educators, he observes, are a first line of defense. They’re able to help other students recognize that they may be at risk for or may already have a problem with alcohol and work with them to acknowledge the problem or potential hazard. Because peer support aims to stem problems before they happen, he says, it’s one of the more proactive approaches available.

Okasaki, a student in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver, became involved in peer support as a sophomore at the University of Northern Colorado Center for Peer Education as a student coordinator and peer educator. She was involved for three years and came to work as an intern for National BACCHUS and GAMMA last spring. Peer education, she explains, provides a unique opportunity, giving students access to someone they can relate to who has been trained and has skills with which to dispense important information about campus issues.

“Information, when shared with someone who is like you who’s in a similar circumstance, can have a more profound impact than that delivered by someone who comes into your world claiming to be an expert on the matter,” she says. Part of the important message peer educators can provide, she explains, is that most college students are making responsible choices and are engaging in healthy behaviors. By delivering that message and communicating information about ways students can protect themselves, they can help play an important role in preventing the kinds of tragedies that have made headlines in recent years.

An Open Door to the Helping Professionals

Not only do peer education programs help keep students on a straight and narrow path toward healthier lifestyles, but they also appear to steer many into careers in the helping professions. Peer education, says Hunter, is often the breeding and training ground for people entering the social service fields. “Time and again students get their first taste for the social work profession by being involved in a peer education program,” he says. It fuels a desire to help and provides a base set of skills that serve students well when they enter the profession. “Peer support programs are a perfect way to encourage and reinforce the same skills that are desirable in social workers.”

Says Okasaki, “The skills I gained as a peer educator—learning how to relate to my peers and to dispense important information about taking care of yourself and taking care of the people you love—is something that will definitely have an impact on my role in social work. I hope to carry those tenets into whatever I do.”

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— Kate Jackson is a staff writer for Social Work Today.