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Students’ progressing to tertiary (undergrad or higher) level education often faces problems due to the change in the educational settings that may directly or indirectly affect their studies and interim results. In addition, they may suffer from low self-esteem, which in turn may result from another set of issues such as negative peers, past poor results, unable to get into a school of choice and so on. Those who have to live away from home to attend a university could have their own set of problems. To provide support many universities have counseling offices to help the students tackle their problems. The counseling officers often give repeated appointments in an attempt to help solve these problems. At the university where the research was conducted, more than 75 percent of the students come from a rural background. These are students who, for the purposes of acquiring their tertiary-level education, have had to move to the city, away from their family. These students are known to have problems such as adjusting to urban life, missing home, managing all household chores by themselves, even a culture shock given the nature of urban life and so on, all of which may affect their studies. Unfortunately, the university under study does not employ a student counselor to look after students coming from rural areas. Therefore, to support such students it was thought that a peer counseling session might help the students help themselves.

A workshop using a collaborative approach to help students solve their own problems was designed and conducted. From three different departments, 78 students with a low Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA < 2.50 out of 4.0) participated in the problem-solving workshop. The students were guided in a collaborative environment where individual problems were first identified anonymously by working in pairs and possible solutions were presented by the students themselves by working in collaborative groups.

The paper proposes a performance-improving model to reduce the dropout rate and ensure graduation with a better CGPA. After six semesters of the intervention, the performance of the participating students was compared against the students with similar profile who did not attend the workshop. The perception of effectiveness of the collaborative guidance model was also measured by taking feedback from students.

The collaborative approach seems to benefit students by empowering them to think on their own to solve study-related problems by themselves. To become a standardized procedure, however, more rigorous testing across a greater cross section and number of subjects would be helpful. This paper provides an initial study of the methodology for further study and use.

As the collaborative approach purely involves peers, it benefits students by empowering them to solve study-related problems by themselves and indirectly help self-esteem development.

The purpose of this paper is to explore risk and protective factors associated with suicidal ideation among law enforcement personnel.

The methodology employed is based on the “Best Evidence Synthesis” approach, whereby researchers systematically examine and integrate the most empirically sound available research on the topic under investigation.

Results of studies showed that the interaction of multiple risk factors had a cumulative effect in increasing the risk for suicidal ideation. In total, five prominent aspects of policing were associated with risk for suicidal ideation: organizational stress; critical incident trauma; shift work; relationship problems; and alcohol use and abuse. Studies also indicated that protective factors and preventative measures had stress‐buffering effects which decreased the impact of police stressors.

The model is limited because few studies have employed methodologically‐sound research designs to test risk and protective factors related to police suicide. This conceptual overview may facilitate theory development and provide directions for future research.

Law enforcement agencies which implement programs that assist police personnel in developing active coping styles, identify and access available social support systems, as well as utilize community‐based services may decrease risk for suicidal ideation. This review provides practical applications for law enforcement training, education, and program development.

The paper represents the most recent review of risk and protective factors related to suicidal ideation among police personnel. This integration of research provides police practitioners with an evidence‐based ecological framework that can be applied universally in police management settings.

College students and their alcohol use have been the subject of numerous studies over the last three decades and have received an increasing amount of attention (Engs, 1977; Hanson and Engs, 1984; Gadaleto and Anderson, 1986; Downs, 1987; Thompson and Wilsnack, 1987; Janosik and Anderson, 1989; Tryon, 1992). Studies on student alcohol use began appearing in the literature in the mid‐1970's (Penn, 1974; Rouse and Ewing, 1978; Newton, 1978). Subsequent studies (Scheller‐Gilkey, Gomberg, and Clay, 1979; Heritage, 1979; O'Connell and Patterson, 1989) have documented consistently high levels of alcohol consumption and a serious abuse problem on college campuses. Although some studies (Condon and Carman, 1986; Hanson and Engs, 1986) indicate that overall consumption has reached a plateau, Gonzalez (1986) reported that 89% of male students and 86% of female students surveyed drank alcohol, and many suffered from alcohol related problems. Further, both recent survey data (Eigen, 1991) and participant‐observer studies (Moffatt, 1989) suggest that collegiate drinking is a very serious health concern. Moffatt found that to a great extent college students' lives revolved around the acquisition and consumption of alcohol and constituted students' favourite collective activity. Surveys revealed that no other population group in the United States has a more serious drinking problem than does the college student population (Gonzalez, 1986). Both men and women drink more as they progress through the college, and those who drink more also experience more alcohol‐related problems (Gonzalez, 1989).

In the quest to maximize treatment gains, recent research has shifted focus from treatment itself to the context in which treatment takes place. Such investigations have alluded to rehabilitative climate, therapeutic alliance, prison social climate, and the efficacy of group process. The purpose of this paper is to review peer-support as a mechanism via which these goals might be reached.

A review of the literature on peer-support in carceral settings was undertaken in February 2017.

While there is very little research exploring peer-support in the context of offender rehabilitation, there are some promising signs from many qualitative investigations that peer-led roles can bridge many gaps in support within the therapeutic context.

More research on the potential negative impact of peer-support in carceral setting is needed.

This paper proposes that the implementation of peer-support programs that operate alongside treatment interventions represent an encouraging direction for the future. It is argued that prisoner-led peer-support initiatives that are characterized by shared problem solving and reciprocal emotional support can greatly reduce the anxiety prisoners face surrounding treatment. It is suggested that, through peer-support, treatment gains may be enhanced and better assimilated into program-completers’ lives.

Peer-support may assist current treatment approaches with sexual offenders and could therefore potentially contribute to reductions in recidivism.

This paper is the first to review peer-support in the context of imprisonment and offender therapy. It therefore provides an important status update for future researchers wishing to investigate this topic, and outlines several priorities that such research might interrogate further.

Social Network Analysis has been posited as a useful technique to determine if leadership development programs are an effective intervention in developing social ties and enhancing connectivity among leaders in an organization. Evaluations can examine the extent to which the leadership development programs create and catalyze peer networks. This study used Social Network Analysis to evaluate the development of a peer leadership network and resulting relationships among leaders participating in a leadership development program. Several predictions were made about the development of participants’ task, career, and social networks, generally predicting enhanced “esprit de corps” with their peer leaders over time. Thirty top executives in local public health were selected to participate in a 12-month national leadership development training program. Peer network development was documented at three time points across the programmatic year at 6-month intervals. The results demonstrated that while leaders’ social networks increased over time, friendship networks increased more slowly than did acquaintance networks. The task-related networks involving interactions to solve problems, and career networks for seeking advice and support increased over time, with task-related and advice-related networks stabilizing by the end of the second workshop. Implications for developing peer leadership networks are discussed.

The authors would like to acknowledge the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Association for County and City Health Officials and for their support of this research.

Describes a pilot peer education project based at Fife Health Promotion Department, which began in April 1993. The project had funding for three years and was supported by Fife Health Care, Fife Health Board and the Health Education Board for Scotland. Describes how the project team devised a model to clarify the aims and objectives of the project, given that there is no affiliated body to provide guidelines, and that there is a lack of documentation concerning thorough evaluation and the plethora of meanings associated with peer‐led work. The model will make it easier to document the processes involved for the purposes of evaluation. Outlines the rationale behind the model and describes how the model provides a core framework for other peer work.

This study explores the impact of work environment, work‐family conflict, and coping mechanisms on physical and psychological stresses of police officers. Using survey data from a large police department located in the New England area, we pay specific attention to analyzing similar and dissimilar results while comparing across gender groups. Our research indicates that for both gender groups, work‐family conflict (spillover) and destructive coping mechanisms are among the strongest and most consistent stressors, regardless of the measures of dependent variable employed (i.e. somatization, anxiety and depression). On the other hand, we also find divergent impact of exposures to negative work environment, camaraderie, and constructive coping mechanisms on different measures of work related stresses across the two gender groups. Implications of these convergent and divergent effects are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to review systematically the available literature relating to the implementation of peer education to promote health and healthy behaviour in prisons.

The authors undertook a narrative systematic review of Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL, Psychinfo, Web of Science and Cochrane databases. Relevant journals and reference lists were hand searched for relevant articles to be included in the review. Of the abstracts found, full‐text papers were retrieved for those papers deemed as possibly fulfilling the inclusion criteria of the review.

A total of 3,033 abstracts were identified leading to 46 full‐text articles being retrieved, of which ten were included in the review. Peer education in prisons can have an impact on attitudes, knowledge, and behaviour intention regarding HIV risk behaviour. The research findings were inconclusive for the impact of peer education upon illicit drug use and injecting practice. There was a paucity of research evaluating the impact of peer education upon mental ill health, obesity, diet, smoking, or self‐management of chronic physical diseases.

Peer education is effective in reducing risk of HIV transmission. It is possible that peer education for mental health issues is stigmatising, presenting an opportunity for further research activity. The impact of peer education upon illicit drug use practice, obesity, diet, smoking, and self‐management of chronic physical diseases also presents further research opportunities. Research evaluating models of active peer educator involvement in health service delivery and organisation is also lacking.

Formalised support services for prisoners that rely on peer methods of delivery show promising health and social outcomes but there is also conjecture that negative effects, both at an individual and organisational level, can occur. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Individuals with recognised professional expertise from various sectors (including ex-prisoners) were invited to contribute to an expert symposium to share their perceptions of the positive and negative effects of peer interventions in prison. Discussions and debate were audio recorded with the consent of all delegates and verbatim transcripts were analysed using framework analysis.

According to the participants, peer interventions in the prison setting created both positive and negative impacts. It was clear from the evidence gathered that peer interventions in prisons can impact positively on health outcomes, but these effects were perceived to be more well-defined for peer deliverers. The notion that peer deliverers can be subjected to “burnout” suggests that supervisory processes for peer workers need to be considered carefully in order to avoid the intervention from being counter-productive. Organisationally, one of the salient issues was the adverse effects that peer interventions cause to the security of the prison.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time an expert symposium has been conducted to specifically examine peer interventions in prison and to consider the effects, both positive and negative, of such schemes.

Examines how counselling can be useful in terms of the contribution it can make to organisational and individual development. Considers the reasons why counselling should be more central to organisational activity – stress, change, and career shifts – as well as generic qualities of counselling, and ways of making counselling more accessible. Surmises that counselling reduces absenteeism and improves morale and motivation, to the financial benefit of the company.