Effectiveness of one-year participation in school-based volunteer-facilitated peer support groups

Adolescence, Spring, 1998 by Adel Wassef, Gayle Mason, Melissa Lassiter Collins, John VanHaalen, Denise Ingham

Emotional distress and behavioral problems are common in high school students. Wassef et al. (Wassef, Ingham, Lassiter Collins, & Mason, 1995; Wassef, Lassiter Collins, Ingham, & Mason, 1995) have discussed the etiology of these phenomena and the obstacles related to the large-scale implementation of programs designed to assist students, as well as the difficulty of assessing their efficacy. 'This article presents the first-year results of the Student Assistance Program, which involves peer support groups. The areas in which improvement was found are highlighted.

METHOD

In the 1990-1991 academic year, the Student Assistance Program - an early intervention approach involving volunteer-facilitated peer support groups - was launched in a southeast Texas high school. Fifteen hundred students were enrolled in the school: 5:1% male and 49% female; 69% Anglos, 1.7% Hispanics, 12% African Americans, and 2% Asians. Minorities were somewhat overrepresented in the school as compared with the community. English was the primary language in :more than four-fifths of the students' homes. Spanish and Vietnamese were the languages for most of the remainder. Approximately 20% of the students received free or reduced-price lunches, reflecting the middle to low socioeconomic status of this population.

At the beginning of the school year, all students were provided with information about the support groups available for those who were experiencing emotional distress or behavioral problems. Students, family members, and school staff could also anonymously provide the names of those who, in their opinion, were having significant difficulties and might benefit from inclusion in the program. Participation in the groups, however, was strictly voluntary regardless of the type of referral or the perceived problem. A screening team, which included the school counselor, evaluated the applicants to confirm the need for help. Students who were experiencing problems that required immediate attention and those who needed hospitalization or out-of-school management were referred to outside resources (approximately 10% of the applicants).

The age range of the 11.8 participants was 14-19 years. They were assigned to small groups of 8-12 students based on their presenting problems. They met weekly on the school campus for 50 minutes during school hours. In the group meeting, the students discussed their concerns and stressors at home and school, as well as different coping strategies. Each group focused on one of the following topics: the consequences of substance use and how to remain abstinent; the effects of substance use by a relative (usually a parent) or a friend; parental divorce and remarriage; grief; school, family, relationships, and self-image; abuse (physical, sexual, or emotional); body image; the dual role of parent and student; depression; and minority issues. Each of the groups convened in the presence of two volunteer facilitators, who were not mental health professionals (a school staff member and an adult from the community). All volunteers received 2-3 days of training and ongoing in-service instruction (8 hours per year), including how to play a nondirective role.

Group meetings were held on a rotating basis to preclude missing the same class. The school expected the participants to complete any work assigned during missed classes. Students received no educational credit for participation.

The facilitators contacted students who failed to show up for group meetings, encouraging them to resume participation or referring 'them to other sources of help. Students were not penalized for withdrawing :from the groups (approximately 5%). At the end of the semester, participants who wanted to reenroll for the following semester were allowed to do so. New students were added to the existing groups. Since all students who qualified for the program were allowed to participate, 'there were no control groups.

At the end of the school year, the students anonymously completed the 24-item Self-Assessment Questionnaire (see Wassef, Mason, Lassiter Collins, O'Boyle, & Ingham, 1996). The first 14 items (see Table 1) measured the effect of participation on items related to interpersonal, internal and school domains. Possible answers were: positive effect, no effect, negative effect, encounter too brief to tell, and does not apply. The next 7 items dealt with overall program acceptability. Three questions dealt with dropping out of school and substance use. Reliability of the Self-Assessment Questionnaire has been established; Cronbach's alpha = .85 (Wassef et al., 1996).

RESULTS

Table 1 shows that more students reported positive effects of the peer support groups than no effects or negative effects for all of the first 14 items except impact on school attendance, for which almost half reported no effect. Table 2 shows that students who indicated their intention to join an in-school support group the following year exceeded those who intended to participate in an out-of-school group. Nearly nine out of ten stated that they would recommend the school group to a friend, two-thirds asked a friend to join, and a third referred a friend directly to the counselor for evaluation. Only 38.7% of the students expressed comfort with participating in the group at the beginning; however, by the end, only 3.2% remained uncomfortable. On a 5-point scale, 53.3% rated the general efficacy of the groups as 5 (highest), 30% as 4, 16.7% as 3, and none as 2 or 1.