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Peer Mentoring Course

Merseyside Youth Association’s RAISE Team in partnership with Liverpool CAMHS Partners has developed an interactive peer mentoring offer for schools and youth groups with a focus on mental health.

What does the course cover?

Day 1:

  • Personal skills, qualities, abilities and areas of development
  • Roles and responsibilities of a peer mentor
  • What makes a good peer mentor?
  • Situations a peer mentor may need to mentee someone in.
  • What makes a good / positive role model?
  • Strategic Chat: Having a ‘strategic chat’ with peers in the peer mentor role
  • Confidentiality
  • Role play and case studies scenarios.
  • Resilience: What it means & why it is important to build resilience.

Day 2:

  • Mental health – what is it, who’s got it, why do we need to talk about it?
  • Mental health and mental illness
  • Stigma, myths and facts around mental health and mental illness
  • Stress bucket – what stresses young people out / what worries them and what effect does this have on young people’s mental health?
  • Mental health continuum – we’re all on it.
  • Mental Illnesses – what are they?
  • How resilience can help with mental health
  • DRAGONS DEN: How do you want peer mentoring to look in YOUR school / youth group?

 

The 2-day course will finish with a Dragons’ Den style activity, where the groups will work together to plan how they will implement peer mentoring within their school or youth group, and pitch it to a panel of teachers/youth leaders/other young people.

School/Youth Group Requirements

  • Group of around 20 young people
  • Pre-course meeting with MYA member of staff to go through course and any questions
  • A teacher / leader to be present over the 2 days so they are familiar with the content
  • Give MYA names of assigned members of staff in school/youth group that the peer mentors can go to if they need advice or have conversation that they are worried about. This person will be someone who can support the group, arrange termly meetings with the group to catch up and support them and also monitor Strat Chats regularly. (MYA staff will support these meetings too)
  • A safe place for Strat chats to be stored (this can be discussed prior to the course being delivered)
  • A monthly short 2-minute survey to be completed for feedback
  • At least 3 members of staff to be on the dragon’s den panel for the final hour on day 2.

What is a Strat Chat?

As part of the development of this course, young people will record their conversation themes on a sheet called a Strat chat where they will simply be asked the date, theme of conversation and if they referred this conversation on. The can rate the Strat chat as green (Mentor dealt with it and conversation went well), amber (went well but spoke to a member of staff for advice) and red (referred on as was a case I was worried about). Young people will also be asked some questions around the themes of conversations on the monthly survey sent out.

What will the student get out of it?

All young people that take part in the peer mentoring programme will receive a certificate and a badge, along with a great detail of information on peer mentoring and mental health, and a fun 2 days! MYA staff will also support the group by having termly group meeting with them to see how they are getting on and if they need any extra support. 

The Silver and Gold level are in development, where the students/young people have the opportunity to look at how they can spread awareness of mental health within their school/youth environment (Silver Level), and furthermore how they can do this within their wider community where they will plan this during a residential (Gold Level).

MYA Additional Offer

As part of this course, MYA Raise Mental Health Promotion Team will also provide ongoing support for your group with meetings, assembly launches, more training on mental health etc. Also, the team are currently training in a basic CBT model that can be used to help children and young people who are experiencing mild to moderate anxiety, phobias, low-mood or mild depression. Typically, we offer between 8-12 one to one sessions with children and young people aged 10-25.

Silver and Gold level are in development, where the student have the opportunity to look at how they can spread awareness of mental health within their school/youth environment (Silver Level), and furthermore how they can do this within their wider community (Gold Level).

For further information on this course please contact mentalhealthpromotion@mya.org.uk or call 0151 702 0738.