Peer Counselling in Schools

A Time to Listen

Helen Cowie, Sonia Sharp

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351995474
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Psychology

Originally published in 1996, this book is about the role of peer-helping in alleviating interpersonal difficulties among young people in school settings. It is based on real-life experience on the part of the two editors and their contributors in training and developing peer-counselling services in local schools, in order to strengthen policies on bullying, equal opportunities and related personal issues. Young people's experience of being actively engaged in helping their peers has a positive effect on self-esteem and heightens a sense of responsibility and citizenship in the young people involved. The book seeks to help teachers, educational psychologists, social workers and others working with young people to appreciate the value of peer counselling and to introduce it into their practice.

Part I

Understanding and Preparing for Peer Support

CHAPTER 1

Overview

When a child is born he/she is loving, lovable, intelligent, creative, energetic, powerful, gentle, sociable and cooperative. We never lose these qualities; because they are the essence of being human. Our bodies age, but the child within each of us remains the same. Each night the stars are shining, even though on some nights they cannot be seen because of the clouds. So it is with the child within us. What must be done, then, is for the clouds, which have accumulated along the way, to be cast off. And then the stars within us will shine with all their brilliance. (Marthaler in Frey, 1991)

Introduction

Counselling is commonly defined as an activity in which a trained professional engages in a particular relationship with a person who is experiencing personal or emotional difficulties. The idea of empowering young people to offer support to peers in distress can at first glance be viewed with suspicion by professionals in the field. Typical comments at a recent conference included:

“These pupils are too young to understand complex emotions.”

“They could do damage.”

“What about the confidentiality?”

“It takes years of training and experience to do this work.”

“Who would ultimately be responsible if something went wrong?”

“They would never have the patience and stamina to keep it going.”

But are these understandable doubts justified? Throughout this book we argue that the largely untapped resource of peer support and help should be taken more seriously. For one thing, there is much evidence to show that the presence of close, intimate relationships with members of our peer group can fend off the worst effects of stress (Duck, 1991); furthermore, when we are in difficulty, it is to peers – people of a similar age group or those who have shared the same experience – that we often turn initially for help, support and understanding. Peers share with us a distinctive history and a particular social context, and peers are often willing to give their time and to offer themselves in the role of listener and supporter at the very point of crisis when the professional help is simply not available. However well-meaning the adults may be, the young person in distress may never actually approach the expert who could offer help. Furthermore, we as adults often underestimate the capacity of young people to empathise with one another’s suffering and to offer helpful support and guidance.

So, the term “peer counselling” is used in this book in a broad sense, not to describe a specialist activity involving highly trained professionals but as an extension of the very natural willingness, evident in most social groups, to offer help, support and a listening ear to others in the same or a similar age-group. In the course of the book, you will read about research into peer counselling, you will discover the practicalities of setting it up in school contexts, and you will have the opportunity to overview case studies of peer counselling in action. But before we embark on this, we need to find out something of the nature of peer support systems, what they are, how they have arisen and where they flourish.

Animal studies

We look first at relevant biological studies of conflict, aggression and reconciliation among primates to see if the parallels which can be drawn between the social world of animals and that of humans give insights into why humans are cruel and rejecting in some settings and cooperative and supportive in others.

De Waal (1992) suggests that, in primate society, the complex interplay between aggression and cooperation contributes constructively to social relationships within the group. If we look at animals in their social context, he points out, we certainly see planned violence. For example, the chimps in the Gombe observed by Goodall (1986) stalked their enemies, attacked and eliminated them with extreme brutality. There is no doubt that this kind of violence exists. Yet if we look more closely, we can see that the aggressive behaviour is closely interwoven with acts of conciliation and support. In his detailed observations of chimpanzees in the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center, De Waal found that, in comparison with other types of interaction, “food encounters” were characterised by increased levels of both aggressive and appeasement behaviour. For example, out of 4,653 interactions concerning food, over half involved a transfer of food from one chimpanzee to another. The rate of sharing by A with B was balanced by a reciprocal sharing by B with A (r=0.552, p<0.001). During these types of encounter, there was a more than 100-fold increase in the rate of calming body contact such as kissing, touching and embracing, and only a ninefold increase in aggression. In other words, there were many more instances of sharing and cooperating than of aggression. And the aggression, when it appeared, was selective. Those chimps who had not shown themselves to be generous in sharing found that, when they came to their fellows for food, they were more likely to be treated to an aggressive rebuff. The chimps demonstrated through the selective nature of their aggressive responses to others that they had some concept of injustice, unfairness and lack of reciprocity and a need to promote egalitarian food sharing relationships.

In a study of aggressive encounters between pigtail macaques, Judge (1991) observed “third party” reconciliations. Here individuals not involved in the conflict demonstrated affiliative acts with the aggressor. These individuals included kin of both aggressor and victim, and the behaviour could be seen as an attempt to conciliate the aggressor or to reconcile the two in conflict. There is also evidence, in studies of chimp interaction after a conflict (Smucny and Aureli, 1994), of contacts between bystanders and the victim which appear to demonstrate attempts on the part of the bystanders to console the injured party.

These observations in the field suggest that primates possess powerful mechanisms of reassurance and reconciliation which allow them to cope with the socially negative effects of aggression within their own social group. “As a result, aggression can be a well-integrated part of, and can contribute constructively to, social relationships” (De Waal, 1992, p. 53).

Can this research cast light on our thinking about peer counselling? It is certainly of interest to us to know that primatologists are currently concerned to find answers to the following questions. Are there post-conflict interactions involving members of the peer group? How do peers respond to aggressors and victims in the aftermath of dispute? Do peers and bystanders have a role to play in reconciling the two parties in a conflict, in consoling the loser and in appeasing the aggressor?

Siblings: cooperation and conflict

The growing body of research evidence indicating the importance of sibling relationships across the life span also offers useful insights into our understanding of peer relationships. Most psychologists accept that individuals’ experiences with parents in the early years affect the quality of their relationships with others. There are different explanations for this: psychodynamic theory (e.g. Winnicott, 1984), attachment theory (Bowlby, 1988; Main et al., 1985) and family systems (Minuchin, 1974), for example. But fewer theories acknowledge the full impact of the quality of the relationship with siblings on a person’s capacity to relate with others. Most of us grow up in families where there is at least one sibling and, in fact, by the time they are a year old, most children will spend as much time with their siblings as they do with their mothers (Dunn, 1983). The relationship is a unique one and it has a special status within the family. Siblings get to know one another intimately and, as Dunn’s work has shown, children demonstrate sensitivity and empathy for their siblings far in advance of expectations based on traditional theories of child development. Older siblings have been shown to adopt roles as varied as attachment figure (Stewart, 1983), caregiver (Weissner and Gallimore, 1977), tutor (Cicirelli, 1976) and playmate (Katz et al., 1992). There is conflict in the relationships among siblings but, as Katz et al. (1992) have shown in their review, these conflicts may facilitate social development because children have a fairly safe context in which to practise ways of responding to conflict, aggression and distressing feelings. Children also report that their siblings are a source of alliance, companionship and intimacy. In fact, Barnes and Austin (1991) showed in their research that children’s perceptions of sibling warmth were good predictors of their self-esteem – more so than maternal warmth and sensitivity.

Dunn found that negative life events such as difficulty at school or an illness in the family brought siblings closer together and that they were likely to provide one another with emotional support during these times of crisis. In fact, many people seem to report that they grow closer to their siblings as they progress through life and many report that a sibling is a close friend (Ross and Milgram, 1982).

Dunn’s pioneering research on siblings (1983; 1988) has demonstrated that the interactions between young children and a sibling are qualitatively different from those between child and parent. She noted in her naturalistic observations of children in their home settings that younger siblings, early in the second year of life, showed a clear grasp of how to annoy or comfort the other child. Her work led to a model of the growth of social understanding in which the child’s development as a social being grows out of his or her responsiveness to the feelings and behaviour of others. Dunn argues that significant contributions to the child’s development in the family context are made by intense self-concern on the one hand and with “participation in the moral discourse of the family” on the other.

Of particular relevance to our work on peer counselling is Dunn’s finding in her follow-up study of the siblings whom she had observed as pre-schoolers (Dunn et al., 1991). When she and her colleagues revisited these children in middle childhood and adolescence, they found that there were links between the quality of the relationships between the siblings in the pre-school period and the children’s behaviour at a later age. For example, those who had grown up with a sibling who had been unfriendly or aggressive were more likely as adolescents to have emotional difficulties in their relationships with others than those whose siblings had been warm and affectionate to them.

There are also interesting inter-generational effects. Researchers looking at the basis for children’s friendships have looked to the wider context of the family. Putallaz et al. (1991) found that children are influenced by their mother’s recollection of her own childhood (including her own recall of sibling relationships). It seems that this recollection affects the ways in which she prepares her children for the peer relationships which they will have at school. Kramer and Baron (1995) investigated whether there is a close relationship between parents’ reports of their childhood sibling relationships, their current parenting goals and behaviours, and the quality of their own children’s relationships; they found that there was not a simple linear relationship between individuals’ childhood sibling relationships and experiences and the quality of their children’s sibling relationships. In other words, there was the possiblity of discontinuity between parenting beliefs and behaviours across generations. Their research suggests that we need to know more about the coping strategies and the qualities of resilience which some individuals acquire in order to avoid the problems which they become enmeshed in as children.

However, this research would suggest that experience with siblings has a strong impact on individuals’ capacity to understand relationships and on the ways in which they interact socially with their peers.

Why do peers help one another?

Conflict and cooperation are woven into the complex web of relationships which children and adolescents form with their peers, and learning how to understand the many facets of their social world is an essential part of growing up. The following accounts by children (taken from Cowie et al., 1994) indicate that children vary widely in their capacity to become skilled navigators in the sea of interpersonal relationships. Here Ben, aged 10, describes how he deals with quarrels with his best friend:

We do quarrel but we usually make it up. Sometimes we have an argument and then next time we meet we forget about it. It’s in the past and it doesn’t matter any more. I don’t have too many friends. If I had millions of friends and I had an argument with him I could walk off. But instead I try to make it up with him. (Cowie et al., 1994, p. 1)

Children can demonstrate sensitivity and empathy for a friend but can also tolerate a certain level of conflict within the relationship. Laursen (1993), in a study of adolescent conflicts, found that disagreements with friends and partners were associated with lower levels of negative affect, higher levels of continued social interaction and improved relations after the dispute. Laursen suggests that most adolescents learn to manage conflicts in such a way as to minimise their disruptive effects. In the context of an existing friendship, conflict can play an important part in maintaining the relationship and even in strengthening it. Positive outcomes can include ego development, enhanced understanding of relationships and the realignment of roles.

But the peer group can also behave in ways which are deliberately designed to cause pain and hurt, and conflicts can have damaging effects on the group as well as on the individual (Hartup, 1992; Selman, 1980). Alan, a bully-victim aged 9, is frequently involved in fights and quarrels, some of which he initiates himself. He does not like members of his class on the whole and assumes, quite accurately, that many of them do not like him in return. But some peers are able to show awareness of his situation. Here Shoukat, who has already experienced victimisation in the class, describes his upset when he sees Alan being bullied:

Alan, he’s like Saleem, like when Saleem’s at school, I think he’s a bit scared from inside … Yeah, he’s scared inside, because the other day we were lining up and everyone just started pushing him I don’t know why. And then they pushed him off the chair and he fell on the floor – teacher weren’t there – and they all started kicking him and kicking him. Children from our class – I don’t know why – they get bad-tempered. They are a real laugh but they get bad-tempered. And they were doing this to him. When Miss said, “Who were the first to hit Alan?” I looked at some of these people … If they really wanted to beat Alan up they wouldn’t volunteer [i.e. admit to having done it], but they did. They volunteered and they said, “We’re really sorry. We won’t do it again.” (Cowie et al., 1994, pp. 176–7)

Shoukat had not felt able to protest at the time but he did go up to Alan afterwards and offer him genuine support based on his empathy for the suffering which Alan was experiencing. This support continued when similar incidents took place and, although Alan remained a target of bullying in the class at large, at least in small group settings with peers like Shoukat he was offered a haven. In the longer term this enabled Alan to experience some positive relationships with peers which improved the quality of his social life.

Even for those who, like Shoukat, do not want to cause their peers to feel rejected and unwanted, there may be strong pressure from the peer group not to intervene. The awareness of another’s suffering may then never be expressed and the victim may not realise that others care about him or her. The impact on self-esteem can be catastrophic. The peer group is important to the young person and lack of acknowledgement or affirmation from that social group can lead to the internalisation of profound feelings of unworthiness, loneliness and despair. Often children want to help others who are in distress but don’t know how.

Some researchers have looked at the phenomenon of peer helping in terms of costs and benefits ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Part I Understanding and Preparing for Peer Support
• 2 What is Peer Counselling?
• 3 The Context of Peer Counselling
• 4 Setting Up a Training Programme
• Part II Peer Counselling and Support in Action
• 6 Creating a Circle of Friends: A Case Study by Gill Taylor
• 7 Three Years in the Life of a Peer Counselling Service by Anne Sellors
• 8 Combatting Bullying in School: The Role of Peer Helpers by Netta Cartwright
• 9 Peers Facing the Problem of Bullying in School by DerekGillard
• 10 The Anti-Bullying Campaign (ABC) at Acland Burghley by Hilary Paterson, Maggie Bentley, Franny Singer and Philip O’Hear
• Part III Peer Counselling and Support: Evaluating its Impact
• 12 How Do We Know It Works?
• References
• INDEX