So, what exactly is Peer Education?

We like to think of peer education as a process where people of the same social groups – be that age, sexual orientation, culture or interests – share information to educate, inform and empower each other’s choices. 

Peer education has been shown as a super effective way of sharing information on topics like sexual health because young people generally seem to feel more comfortable discussing ‘taboo’ subjects with people they see as being ‘on their level’.

But you needn’t take our word for it.

UNESCO – the leaders in best-practice sexuality education – defines Peer Education in the following way:
A ‘peer’ is one that is of equal standing with another; one belonging to the same societal group especially based on age, grade, or status. The term ‘peer education’ would indicate a process whereby those of the same societal group or social standing are educating each other

Advocates For Youth explain how peer education can have a positive influence on young people:
Peer education draws on the credibility that young people have with their peers, leverages the power of role modelling, and provides flexibility in meeting the diverse needs of today’s youth. Peer education can support young people in developing positive group norms and in making healthy decisions about sex.

And Y-Peer, the ground breaking international Youth Peer Education Network, does a great job of explaining why peer education on sexual health is so valuable for young people:
Peers are traditional providers of information to their peers. Young people tend to talk with their peers about most subjects, including sensitive issues such as reproductive health and HIV/AIDS… Peer education makes use of peer influence in a positive way.
More than just helping educate others, Y-Peer explains that peer education is beneficial for the educators, too:
Peer education programmes can provide strong benefits to peer educators themselves. Peer education programmes allow for direct participation of young people in programmes designed to affect them, thereby promoting positive life skills such as leadership and communication and creating opportunities for mentoring and future job contacts.

How Peer Education for HIV and Sexual Health fits into the Global Guidelines for best practice as defined by UNESCO

First things first: what does the term ‘best practice’ really mean?
To put it simply, ‘best practice’ offers advice on the best way to approach something. While there are no guarantees in life, ‘best practice’ helps to guide us by gathering all the knowledge we have about what works and doesn’t work in certain contexts/situations. Through a continual process of learning, feedback, reflection and analysis, ‘best practice’ helps determine what works, how it works, and why it works.
Referring to ‘best practice’ can be really helpful when facing complex situations, because it helps you understand how to apply your own knowledge and offers tools and procedures to assist you [i].

Best practice for youth HIV sexual health education:
In 2008 and 2009, UNESCO conducted a review to assess how effectively studies that involved Peer Education had impacted young people’s behaviours towards sexual health related risks such as exposure to HIV and other STIs
Of the 63 studies they looked at, forty percent reported increased condom use and forty percent reported increased use of contraception. Across all forms of contraception, the programs noted a fifty-three percent decrease in sexual risk taking.
At the end of the review, UNESCO concluded that over half the programs they had assessed had effectively increased sexual health knowledge and decreased risk-taking behaviours.
We’d say that’s a pretty great result! And UNESCO agree, which is why they have specifically included Peer Education for HIV and Sexual Health into their Global Guidelines for best practice [ii].

Why Do It? Because it can be fun!
While the sexual health of young people is a serious topic, peer education can also be a pretty fun thing to do!
As an educator, you get to attend events, talk to other young people, give out free stuff… and you can even take some of that free stuff for yourself!
You’ll also find it seriously rewarding. When a young person decides to talk to you about something they might find embarrassing otherwise, you soon realise the value of being seen as a peer. You will be able to offer advice and information, direct people to a clinics or doctors, or even provide them with barrier methods.
Educators are armed with all the knowledge and materials to help them be able to offer relevant, honest and valuable advice to those who are often too scared to ask.

So, what types of questions can you expect to be asked as a peer educator?
To be honest, it could be almost anything. You could come across someone who wants to know who they can talk to about their feelings of depression. As an educator, you’ll be able to point them in the right direction.  You might talk to someone who is worried that they’re in an unhealthy relationship, and you’ll be able to show them how to find the right service to help them out. You might even find yourself talking with someone who is too scared to search the web for sexual health information; you’ll be able to point them to websites with accurate, youth-friendly information.
Peer education is about all this, and so much more.

We love learning about the different ways that Peer Education has been successfully used to educate and empower young people about matters of sexual health. Check out these case studies:
Ellenbrook Girls Group

Organised by the Western Australian City of Swan’s Youth Services team, in Perth, the Ellenbrook Girls Group brought together a group of girls, aged 13-16, in a shared safe space, where anything to do with sexual health and healthy relationships could be discussed. Other aims for the group where to increase self-esteem and develop protective behaviours, like how to prevent STI or BBV transmission.
The group consisted of 4-6 girls, who would gather after school for an hour and a half.
The outcomes of the group included an increase in their knowledge of various sexual health topics, increased self-confidence and the creation of a genuine safe space for the young women. Through the youth centre, the girl’s also had access to free condoms.[iii]

YUTHE Program
Youth United Through Health Education (YUTHE) is a community-level peer outreach program, which aims to increase awareness and improve screening of sexually transmitted infections. The program focuses on African-American adolescents living in urban areas.
Sexually experienced young people aged 12-22 years would meet with peers during a 15-minute ‘catch-up’. Those involved would fill out a risk assessment form and were given condoms and STI/Blood Borne Viruses prevention materials.
Although no increase was seen in screenings among the intervention group, those who were involved in the program were more likely to know that sexually transmitted diseases could present no noticeable symptoms. They were also more likely to be aware of urine-based sexually transmitted screening tests, and more likely to see themselves as being at-risk of sexually transmitted infection (iv).
Additionally, participants who were exposed to the YUTHE program once or more were more likely to have been tested for sexually transmitted infections in the previous six months.

Another program involved educating children of migrant workers in China. It was found that the children of migrant workers had lower levels of HIV knowledge and general HIV/AIDS education.
A program was developed with first and second year medical students from a local university, with the assignment being to teach and educate selected students in a peer-group fashion. It was found after the assessments had been completed that 39 percent of students had an improvement in their knowledge of HIV/AIDS.[iv]

[i] University of Michigan

[ii] UNESCO, 2009, International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education, Vol 1

[iii] Youth Affairs Council of Western Australia, 2011, The Youth Educating Peers Project Final Report, pp 40-42

[iv]Arizona Health Matters 

[v] Li, S, Huang, et al, G 2010, ‘Evaluation of a school-based HIV/AIDS peer-led prevention programme: the first intervention trial for children of migrant workers in China’, International Journal Of STD & AIDS, 21, 2, pp. 82-86.