The present study involved an investigation and evaluation of a peer counselling programme at a local all-girls secondary school. It is argued that, to be effective, a school-based evaluation should consider the programme through an investigation of its impact on the whole school. As such the main focus in the study is to evaluate this programme from the viewpoint o fthe programme co-ordinator (the school counsellor), the learners, the teacher body and the peer counsellors themselves. The present study was based on predominantly qualitative data collected through the use of interview, questionnaire and focus-group data-collection methods. The results of the study suggest that the peer counselling programme is perceived positively by the majority of learners (both users and non-users) and the teachers. The programme appears to be impacting the school environment by providing additional support to the learners at the school. In addition, the peer counsellors acknowledged the positive impact of their role on their sense of self-worth. A number of recommendations are made in keeping with the aims of an evaluation. An initial recommendation is that the terms "peer counsellor" and "peer counselling" be replaced by "peer helper" and "peer helping", emphasising the more supportive (and less therapeutic) role that the peer counsellors perform. In addition, whilst both the school counsellor and the teachers expressed generally positive comments about the programme, it is suggested that the teachers would benefit from more information with regards to the peer counselling programme. In keeping with a whole-school evaluation, it was felt that the programme would benefit from being more clearly part of the broader school context. Raising both learner and teacher awareness of the programme was a central recommendation. On a broader level, it was recommended that the programme be incorporated into school policy to ensure its official recognition and endorsement in the school context. Peer-helping programmes represent an innovative way in which South African secondary schools can meet the psycho-social and educational needs of their learners. Further research into such programmes may serve to contribute to a body of research that may inform and guide the effective developments of such present and future programmes. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg , 2003.

A formative and summative evaluation of a peer counselling training programme at a college of education. The study investigates the appropriateness and feasibility of implementing a peer counselling support structure for students at an under-resourced college of education in a rural area. Existing peer counselling training programmes were explored in order to identify appropriate principles for implementation at the particular college. The exploration focused on six dimensions: peer counsellor roles and functions, - selection, -training, - support and - supervision, ethical and cultural considerations and programme evaluations. The investigation covered three phases: a survey and needs analysis, assessment of the appropriateness for, and impact of the training programme, on the 23 volunteers and an assessment of the service use and performance of these peer counsellors. Semi-structured questionnaires were used to evaluate all three phases. Qualitative analysis of the data indicated that students perceived peer counselling as a physically, socially and emotionally accessible support structure. Peer counsellors were seen to be a functional support alternative to the academic lecturers available for counselling, specifically in providing assistance with interpersonal dilemmas and in areas of mutual concern. Peer counsellor trainees assessed the training content and procedures as adequate, functional, applicable to the particular context and instrumental to certain personal developmental gains. The data were used to inform the implementation and management of future peer counselling training programmes at the college and to indicate inconclusive areas for future research. The study shows that peer counselling is a potentially effective, functional and complementary strategy to provide pastoral care at under-resourced institutions, provided that the peer counselling programme is customized for the contextual, challenges, needs and concerns of the particular institution. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1999.

The development of clinical peer counselling within BC Schizophrenia Society Victoria (BCSSV) would be an innovation to the local mental health community that could enhance client illness management. This qualitative action research sought to enhance alignment between lived experience of mental illness recovery and professionalism, thereby adding value to the broader field of mental health support programs. Results showed that ethics, disclosure, boundaries, human rights, definitions, readiness, training, supervision, recruitment, liability and strengths need to be further explored prior to program implementation. The conclusions suggested this type of program needs a strong ethical base, a philosophy that supports organizational readiness and change management strategies, understands the complexity of liability and utilizes already existing community resources. The recommendations support community consultation towards a viability assessment, development of an organizational wellness recovery action plan, proper program parameter development such as defining peer support vs. peer counselling, and further research into peer-led services.

Limited research has been conducted on the effectiveness of preventive programmes in addressing the needs of adolescents/youth. This study is aimed at examining the effectiveness of a training programme and whether the training conducted by the researcher contributed to equipping the peer educators with skills to undertake capacity building and empowerment programmes. The research sample consisted of fifteen peer educators who had undergone the training programme. The participants were all grade eleven pupils from the Hillview Secondary School in Newlands East. The majority of the participants in this research study reside in Newlands East. This was an evaluative research study. The data collection instruments were sessional evaluation questionnaires, verbal group evaluation and retrospective evaluation questionnaires. Secondary data were also collected from the school personnel to enhance the research findings. The research findings revealed that the peer educator training undertaken by the researcher was effective and useful in developing skills of the peer educators to initiate and implement capacity-building and empowerment programmes within the school environment. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2001.

The present study attempted to assess the effectiveness of the Zimbabwean secondary school guidance and counselling services from school counsellors' and students' perspective. Available literature shows that students worldwide, including Zimbabwe, experience problems which schools should solve through the provision of guidance and counselling. It was therefore, important to the researcher to assess the effectiveness of the school guidance and counselling services in meeting students' concerns. The research design consisted of a literature and an empirical study. The survey method was used in the empirical study. A self constructed questionnaire was used. Three hundred and fourteen school counsellors and 636 students participated in this study. The SAS/STAT version 9.1 was used to analyse the data. One way and combined two way frequency tables were calculated. Ratios were calculated to establish the relative rating of each item. Chi-square tests were also calculated. The study revealed that there were differences between the level of the school guidance and counselling services in Zimbabwean secondary schools and the international arena. For example, school guidance and counselling services policy in Zimbabwe was not mandatory as compared to the international policies. The Zimbabwean school guidance and counselling services were not always planned for at the beginning of each year, Students and parents were not frequently involved in needs assessment while the services were not frequently evaluated in comparison with those in the international arena. The study also revealed that some biographical variables significantly influenced the way the respondents responded to given items while others did not. The study revealed that the majority of both school counsellors and students viewed the school guidance and counselling services as beneficial and school counsellors as effectively playing their role. The study further revealed that the effectiveness of the Zimbabwean secondary school guidance and counselling services was negatively affected by lack of resources and training in guidance and counselling and non-counselling duties performed by school counsellors. Recommendations for future approaches and strategies in secondary school guidance and counselling services in Zimbabwe are made. Areas for further research are proposed. / Educational Studies / D.Ed. (Psychology of Education)

In South Africa the idea of a peer helping service has gained impetus and is viewed as a viable option given the fact that there is a shortage of professional school-counsellors and complementary care-givers in the public school environment. This research emanated from an awareness that there was a need to develop an objective assessment tool regarding the identification of peer-counsellors. This instigated an investigation of the essential criteria, predominant characteristics and requirements of effective peer-counsellors. The primary focus of this research has been to develop a self-assessment instrument that will assist in the identification and selection of potential peer-counsellors. The self-assessment instrument proved to be a valuable tool in discriminating between good, average and weak peer-counsellors. Findings indicate that the self-assessment instrument should be used in conjunction with other modes of assessment such as the self-report data, teacher ratings and peer ratings. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Guidance and Counselling)

The present study attempted to assess the effectiveness of the Zimbabwean secondary school guidance and counselling services from school counsellors' and students' perspective. Available literature shows that students worldwide, including Zimbabwe, experience problems which schools should solve through the provision of guidance and counselling. It was therefore, important to the researcher to assess the effectiveness of the school guidance and counselling services in meeting students' concerns. The research design consisted of a literature and an empirical study. The survey method was used in the empirical study. A self constructed questionnaire was used. Three hundred and fourteen school counsellors and 636 students participated in this study. The SAS/STAT version 9.1 was used to analyse the data. One way and combined two way frequency tables were calculated. Ratios were calculated to establish the relative rating of each item. Chi-square tests were also calculated. The study revealed that there were differences between the level of the school guidance and counselling services in Zimbabwean secondary schools and the international arena. For example, school guidance and counselling services policy in Zimbabwe was not mandatory as compared to the international policies. The Zimbabwean school guidance and counselling services were not always planned for at the beginning of each year, Students and parents were not frequently involved in needs assessment while the services were not frequently evaluated in comparison with those in the international arena. The study also revealed that some biographical variables significantly influenced the way the respondents responded to given items while others did not. The study revealed that the majority of both school counsellors and students viewed the school guidance and counselling services as beneficial and school counsellors as effectively playing their role. The study further revealed that the effectiveness of the Zimbabwean secondary school guidance and counselling services was negatively affected by lack of resources and training in guidance and counselling and non-counselling duties performed by school counsellors. Recommendations for future approaches and strategies in secondary school guidance and counselling services in Zimbabwe are made. Areas for further research are proposed. / Educational Studies / D.Ed. (Psychology of Education)

In South Africa the idea of a peer helping service has gained impetus and is viewed as a viable option given the fact that there is a shortage of professional school-counsellors and complementary care-givers in the public school environment. This research emanated from an awareness that there was a need to develop an objective assessment tool regarding the identification of peer-counsellors. This instigated an investigation of the essential criteria, predominant characteristics and requirements of effective peer-counsellors. The primary focus of this research has been to develop a self-assessment instrument that will assist in the identification and selection of potential peer-counsellors. The self-assessment instrument proved to be a valuable tool in discriminating between good, average and weak peer-counsellors. Findings indicate that the self-assessment instrument should be used in conjunction with other modes of assessment such as the self-report data, teacher ratings and peer ratings. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Guidance and Counselling)

The purpose of this study is to tell the story of how four peer helpers within the Unisa Peer Help Volunteer Programme managed their portfolio development processes to monitor their growth and development which took place as a result of their involvement in peer helper activities. The epistemological framework of this study is interpretive and involved in-depth interviews with four peer helpers who rendered volunteer services at the University of South Africa and have been developing their career portfolios over a period of time. Hermeneutics was the method used to analyse the data. The stories of the four participants were transcribed and retold by the researcher in the form of themes that emerged. This study contained the stories of how the participants initially struggled to understand the concept and purpose of portfolios; how they took charge of the process; and how their attitudes changed from uncertainty and confusion to viewing the process as worthwhile - thus enabling them to commit themselves, to varying degrees, to the development of their individual portfolios. Recurring themes present in all four stories were described in the researcher's story of the participants' stories. The information generated by this study could serve as guidelines for not only peer helpers interested in developing their own portfolios, but also for project leaders involved in the management of peer helper groups and who plan to implement portfolios in their programmes. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

Adolescent peer counselling as a social support strategy to assist adolescents to cope with stress in their peer group provides the focus for the present thesis. The prosocial behaviour of providing emotional and psychological support through the use of helping conversations by young people is examined. Current programs for training adolescent peer counsellors have failed to discover what skills adolescents bring to the helping conversation. They ignore, actively discourage, and censor, some typical adolescent conversational helping behaviours and idiosyncratic communication processes. Current programs for training adolescent peer counsellors rely on teaching microcounselling skills from adult counselling models. When using this approach, the adolescent peer helper training literature reports skill implementation, role attribution and status differences as being problematic for trained adolescent peer counsellors (Carr, 1984; de Rosenroll, 1988; Morey & Miller, 1993). For example Carr (1984) recognised that once core counselling skills have been reasonably mastered that young people " may feel awkward, mechanical or phoney" (p. 11) when trying to implement the new skills. Problematic issues with regard to role attribution and status differences appear to relate to the term 'peer counsellor' and its professional expectations, including training and duties (Anderson, 1976; Jacobs, Masson & Vass, 1976; Myrick, 1976). A particular concern of Peavy (1977) was that for too many people counselling was an acceptable label for advice giving and that the role of counsellor could imply professional status. De Rosenroll (1988) cautioned against creating miniature mirror images of counselling and therapeutic professionals in young people. However, he described a process whereby status difference is implied when a group of adolescent peer counsellors is trained and invited to participate in activities that require appropriate ethical guidelines including competencies, training, confidentiality and supervision. While Carr and Saunders (1981) suggest, "student resentment of the peer counsellor is not a problem" they go on to say, "this is not to say that the problem does not exist" (p. 21). The authors suggest that as a concern the problem can be minimised by making sure the peer counsellors are not 'forced' on the student body and by providing opportunities for peer counsellors to develop ways of managing resentment. De Rosenroll (1988) acknowledges that the adolescent peer counsellor relationship may fall within a paraprofessional framework in that a difference in status may be inferred from the differing life experiences of the peer counsellor when compared with their student peers. The current project aimed to discover whether the issues of skill implementation, role attribution and status differences could be addressed so that adolescent peer counselling, a valuable social support resource, could be made more attractive to, and useful for adolescents. The researcher's goal was to discover what young people typically do when they help each other conversationally, what they want to learn that would enhance their conversational helping behaviour, and how they experience and respond to their role as peer counsellor, and then to use the information obtained in the development of an adolescent-friendly peer counsellor training program. By doing this, the expectation was that the problematic issues cited in the literature could be addressed. Guided by an ethnographic framework the project also examined the influence of an adolescent-friendly peer counsellor training program on the non-peer counsellor students in the wider adolescent community of the high school. Three sequential studies were undertaken. In Study 1, the typical adolescent conversational and communications skills that young people use when helping each other were identified. In addition, those microcounselling skills that young people found useful and compatible with their typical communication processes were identified. In Study 2, an intervention research process was used to develop, deliver, and evaluate an adolescent-friendly peer counsellor training program which combined typical adolescent helping behaviours with preferred counselling microskills selected by participants in Study 1. The intervention research paradigm was selected as the most appropriate methodology for this study because it is designed to provide an integrated perspective for understanding, developing, and examining the feasibility and effectiveness of innovative human services interventions (Bailey-Dempsey & Reid, 1996; Rothman & Thomas, 1994). Intervention research is typically conducted in a field setting in which researchers and practitioners work together to design and assess interventions. When applying intervention research methodology researchers and practitioners begin by selecting the problem they want to remedy, reviewing the literature, identifying criteria for appropriate and effective intervention, integrating the information into plans for the intervention and then testing the intervention to reveal the intervention's strengths and flaws. Researchers then suggest modifications to make the intervention more effective, and satisfying for participants. In the final stage of intervention research, researchers disseminate information about the intervention and make available manuals and other training materials developed along the way (Comer, Meier, & Galinsky, 2004). In Study 2 an adolescent-friendly peer counsellor training manual was developed. Study 3 evaluated the impact of the peer counsellor training longitudinally on the wider school community. In particular, the project was interested in whether exposure to trained peer counsellors influenced students who were not peer counsellors with regard to their perceptions of self-concept, the degree of use of specific coping strategies and on their perceptions of the school climate. Study three included the development of A School Climate Survey which focused on the psychosocial aspects of school climate from the student's perspective. Two factors which were significantly correlated (p<.01) were identified. Factor 1 measured students' perceptions of student relationships, and Factor 2 measured students' perceptions of teachers' relationships with students. The present project provides confirmation of a number of findings that other studies have identified regarding the idiosyncratic nature of adolescent communication, and the conversational and relational behaviours of young people (Chan, 2001; Noller, Feeney, & Peterson, 2001; Papini & Farmer, 1990; Rafaelli & Duckett, 1989; Readdick & Mullis, 1997; Rotenberg, 1995; Turkstra, 2001; Worcel et al., 1999; Young et al., 1999). It extends this research by identifying the specific conversational characteristics that young people use in helping conversations. The project confirmed the researcher's expectation that some counselling microskills currently used in training adolescent peer counsellors are not easy to use by adolescents and are considered by adolescents to be unhelpful. It also confirmed that some typical adolescent conversational helping behaviours which have been proscribed for use in other adolescent peer counsellor training programs are useful in adolescent peer counselling. The project conclusively demonstrated that the adolescent-friendly peer counsellor training program developed in the project overcame the difficulties of skill implementation identified in the adolescent peer counselling literature (Carr, 1984). The project identified for the first time the process used by adolescent peer counsellors to deal with issues related to role attribution and status difference. The current project contributes new information to the peer counselling literature through the discovery of important differences between early adolescent and late adolescent peer counsellors with regard to acquiring and mastering counselling skills, and their response to role attribution and status difference issues among their peers following counsellor training. As a result of the substantive findings the current project makes a significant contribution to social support theory and prosocial theory and to the adolescent peer counselling literature. It extends the range of prosocial behaviours addressed in published research by specifically examining the conversational helping behaviour of adolescents from a relational perspective. The current project provides new information that contributes to knowledge of social support in the form of conversational behaviour among adolescents identifying the interactive, collaborative, reciprocal and idiosyncratic nature of helping conversations in adolescents. Tindall (1989) suggests that peer counsellor trainers explore a variety of ways to approach a single training model that can augment and supplement the training process to meet specific group needs. The current project responded to this suggestion by investigating which counselling skills and behaviours adolescent peer counsellor trainees preferred, were easy to use by them, and were familiar to them, and then by using an intervention research process, devised a training program which incorporated these skills and behaviours into a typical adolescent helping conversation. A mixed method longitudinal design was used in an ecologically valid setting. The longitudinal nature of the design enabled statements about the process of the peer counsellors' experience to be made. The project combined qualitative and quantitative methods of data gathering. Qualitative data reflects the phenomenological experience of the adolescent peer counsellor and the researcher and quantitative data provides an additional platform from which to view the findings. The intervention research paradigm provided a developmental research method that is appropriate for practice research. The intervention research model is more flexible than conventional experimental designs, capitalises on the availability of small samples, accommodates the dynamism and variation in practice conditions and diverse populations, and explicitly values the insights of the researcher as a practitioner. The project combines intervention research with involvement of the researcher in the project thus enabling the researcher to view and report the findings through her own professional and practice lens.