Center for Prevention and Outreach
Peer Education Program
Center for Prevention and Outreach's (CPO) Peer Education Program is a credit bearing internship experience. Peer Educators will receive 1 or 3 credits per semester for their work and time spent with CPO. This internship experience if for one academic year (and can be repeated year after year)!
What does a Peer Educator do?
Peer Educators serve as liaisons between our college students and the professional staff. Let's be real, most students would prefer to talk about CPO's topics with a peer. We totally understand that! That is why we train Peer Educators each year to help us spread our message. Peer Educators educate their peers about all things health and wellness, empower their friends to make healthy decisions and connect them to resources when needed. This includes tabling around campus, informal conversations with peers, assisting with and even conducting workshops and trainings, creating health communication messaging (check out our Instagram for some examples of past work) and serving as a student voice on various University wide committees. CPO's topic areas include:
- Substance Abuse Prevention and Recovery
- Mental Health Awareness and Suicide Prevention
- Interpersonal Violence Prevention and Health Relationship Education
- Health Education and Disease Prevention
What does a Peer Educator gain from their experience?
In addition to the EXT+ credit, Peer Educators develop public speaking, presentation, organizational, creative and collaborative skills. Peer Educators receive a minimum of 2 Micro credentials through the Career Center over the course of their year long internship. We offer weekly professional development and team development opportunities. These include learning how to speak about your internship experience during interviews and meeting with alumni of our program to learn how their experience shaped them (PS - a lot of interns go on to the medical or public health field). CPO's Peer Education program feels like a very big family. Interns also create long lasting friendships with their fellow Peer Educators.
What topic areas or positions are there?
Although CPO focuses on really all aspects of health and wellness, our four main areas of prevention and outreach are Alcohol and Other Drugs, Interpersonal Violence, Mental Health and Physical Health. We offer a 3 credit internship experience in all of these areas.
How do I apply?
Our 2023-2024 Peer Education cohort is currently full.
We will begin the application process for the 2024-2025 cohort on February 5, 2024! If you are interested in becoming a peer educator and would like to receive updates please complete this form.
The application process includes a mandatory informational session, dates are listed on our SB Engaged page, an online application, a group interview and an individual interview with professional staff.
2024-2025 Application Requirements
All applicants are required to attend an information session to learn about the application process. Trainings are required prior to submitting your application. These trainings are dependent on what track and specialization you are applying for:
1 Credit Interns
You must have completed at least one of CPO's bystander intervention trainings (Red Watch Band, QPR, Green Dot or CPR). You can register for these trainings here. Attending addtional trainings will give you bonus points on your application.
3 Credit Interns
Alcohol and Other Drugs - we require all interns focusing on alcohol and other drug outreach to be Red Watch Band trained before submitting their application . You can register for a Red Watch Band training here.
Violence Prevention & Health Relationships - we require all interns focusing on sexual or domestic violence prevention / healthy relationships to be Green Dot trained before submitting their application. You can register for a Green Dot training here.
Mental Health and Suicide Prevention - we require all interns focusing on mental health to be QPR trained before submitting their application You can register for a QPR training here.
Physical Health Education & Promotion - we require all interns focusing on physical health education and health promotion to complete 1 of the three Bystander Trainings, preferably CPR, prior to submitting your application. You can register for these trainings here.