If we transform relationships among families, friends, colleagues, leaders, youth, and people of differing ethnicities, religions, and generations, we will move the world! —Dr. Barbara Varenhorst
Deep, sustained, and caring relationships provide the seedbed for individuals to thrive and for communities to flourish. In order to provide focused attention to this critical area of human interaction, Dr. Barbara Varenhorst, who began the peer helping movement as a school counselor in Palo Alto, California, in the 1960s, has joined with Search Institute, a leading international innovator in human development, to establish the Varenhorst Partnership.
Peer Helping
Peer helping is a foundational element within the Varenhorst Partnership. Peer helping equips and mobilizes young people, parents, teachers, and other professionals working with youth to cultivate positive relationships through skill-building practical tools, books and curricula, training, coaching, and consulting.
What is Peer Helping?
Peer programs are a variety of supportive services in diverse settings, initiated by peers. Peers are individuals who share common characteristics and experiences. Often they are young people trained by professionals who incorporate the Search Institute 40 Developmental Assets as part of the training.
By establishing meaningful relationships, they become preventive agents who identify problems and encourage others to seek the necessary help from appropriate sources.Peer helpers provide peers with opportunities for learning, guidance, emotional support and growth. By helping others build authentic relationships, they often increase their own self-esteem, personal functioning and ability to develop deeper relationships across generations and in diverse settings.
Download Dr. Varenhorst’s article, Why Peer Helping?
There are a number of current peer helping programs in the United States and Canada. To add your program to the list, please email varenhorst@search-institute.org.View current Peer Helping programs.
How Do Peer Helping and Developmental Assets Work Together?
Peer helping has long been a strategy for teaching youth skills that will help them throughout the rest of their lives. The Developmental Assets framework works very well with peer helping programs, because these programs directly or indirectly build over 30 of the 40 Developmental Assets.
The National Association of Peer Programs and Search Institute
The National Association of Peer Programs (NAPP) was originally established as The National Peer Helper’s Association (NPHA). In 2009, the NAPP decided to merge with Search Institute so that the peer helping movement might have greater access to resources for addressing the concerns of youth. The focus of this effort is to strengthen youth outcomes of existing programs and propose new initiatives by fostering transformational relationships.
Some of the work of NAPP has been carried forward through a new organization, the National Association of Peer Program Professionals (NAPPP). Find out more about NAPPP.
Related Resources
- Programmatic Standards and Ethics: serves as a guideline and foundation for establishing, implementing, and improving a peer program.
- Peer Facilitator Quarterly and the Perspectives in Peer Programs journals: juried professional journals published by both NPHA and NAPP.
- Download Perspectives in Peer Programs Index (peer reviewed).
- Training Peer Helpers: Coaching Youth to Communicate, Solve Problems, and Make Decisions
This book helps teachers, program coordinators, and other adults train young people to create the positive interactions needed for effective peer helping.
- The American School Counselor Association’s Position Statement, The Professional School Counselor and Peer Helping.
