Let’s teach peer support skills to all college students: Here’s how and why

Abstract

The mental health of students at U.S. colleges and universities is rapidly deteriorating, and our counseling infrastructure struggles to meet rising demand. Given this reality, colleges must supplement reactive counseling services with preventive, campus-wide initiatives targeting root causes of distress, including loneliness and lack of social support. One promising innovation would be to provide basic training on listening and helping skills to all students so they can take turns reciprocally supporting each other. Self-disclosure and providing support both have strong mental health benefits. This would also increase social connection, which is likely to improve academics and retention. This paper reviews the benefits and limitations of teaching peer support skills to a large volume of students, which may enable colleges to deliver the social and emotional aspects of education that are critical to health and academics, yet often sorely missing.

Keywords:

• College counseling
• loneliness
• mental health
• peer support

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of America.

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.