Peer mentors are students who help students with disabilities. Together, they work on things like social skills and school work and generally, they become friends with the students they help. They are there to support their friends and peers.
Sophomore Avery Allen has been a peer mentor for 6 years. She is part of Sources of Strength, where students learn about mental health. She also takes two classes for peer mentoring.
“We do more than just help them with schoolwork; we’re friends in and out of the classroom,” Allen said.
Allen believes that it is important that peer mentors become friends with the students with disabilities. Peer Mentors are role models for the students they work with. Showing good morals is part of being a peer mentor.
CJ Semanko is the intensive resources teacher. He believes that a peer mentor should be patient and reliable.
“The role of a peer mentor is to come in and to not only be a friend to our students, but to also be a model for how to act in the classroom,” Semanko said.
Semanko helps students become peer mentors using hands-on training strategies on various training days.
“We hold various trainings, and really, it’s just a lot of on-the-spot learning,” Semanko said.
Allen is starting a club called Peer Assistant Leadership and Support, or PALS. The club is for students who are interested in becoming peer mentors. The club will help students learn to be peer mentors in the most useful ways and be friends with the students they work with.
“[The club] is to help students who want to be peer mentors learn the best ways to help our students, and how we can help in the community as well,” Allen said.
There are some challenges that come with being a peer mentor. Peer mentors may have to adjust when the students they work with have a bad day or are having a hard time with something around them. They can adapt by making accommodations for the students around them, such as making changes to the students’ schedule to make it easier for them that day.
“We adjust by adjusting their work levels, and sometimes adjusting schedules. It just depends on the students and the day,” said Allen
Anybody can be a peer mentor. Students can sign up for a club, such as PALS, or request the class. Their job would be to guide students through schoolwork and friendships. There are chances to be a friend, mentor and guide with students with disabilities.
“Everyone’s different in their own way, and just because you may look different physically, doesn’t mean anything about who you are as a person,” Allen said.
