1. A Friend is the Gift You Give Yourself
2. Join the Peer Resources Network and Receive Information Bonus
3. Attend any of 15 Peer Conferences or Training Events
4. Use Research and Resources to Strengthen Peer Practice
5. Peer Conference Set to Make a Difference
6. Subscribing, Unsubscribing, Distribution and Copyright

A FRIEND IS THE GIFT YOU GIVE YOURSELF

When I started university, my mentor told me that the key to success as a student was to take whatever I was passionate about and construct my course schedule around it. In typically naive undergraduate fashion I struggled with the question, "What am I passionate about?" I posed this question to my mentor who responded in what I would later call a Zen-like fashion by saying, "Look all around you, your passion will be revealed." At the time I remember being more annoyed and confused than enlightened.

Eventually, as I opened my heart and mind to where I was in my life, I began to recognize my attraction to social interaction generally, and more particularly, the role of friendship. Many years later as I reviewed my mentor's advice, I realized that the focus of my professional career - coaching, mentoring, and peer assistance - were illustrations of taking my passion and building the 'course schedule' of my life.

The Positive Power of the Peer Group
I have older brothers so I was born into a family of friends. My parents were what some people might call socialites. They loved to entertain and have their friends over to play cards, chat, or go out on my Dad's boat. I wasn't too involved in my parent's social swirl, but when I see the home movies that my Dad made from those early years, his Matthew's boat is filled with friends and family.

As soon as I could walk and my parents would let me go by myself across the street to a large playground, Rossi Park, I spent virtually every daylight hour (and later several moonlit evenings) doing things with people I met at Rossi. As part of a contingent of young boys from different racial groups that used to meet, rain or shine, at Rossi to play whatever sport was in season, it is only in retrospect that I realize how powerful those early experiences have been in setting my soul on track.

On some days, we would go on adventures to other parts of the city, taking the city bus as a small group. On other days, we would travel by city bus to play sports teams at different parks. We spent most of our days together and later most of our nights together. Some members of this group went to the same schools I did, and we played on the school sports teams together or belonged to the same school clubs. We typically also visited each others' houses, shared meals, or practiced being polite to each others' parents.

Of course, we practiced a lot of other things as well. In retrospect, this is one of the most powerful values of the peer group. The ability and opportunity to try things out, to experiment with new behaviours, to see a friend's reaction, and to be a friend reacting. Taking risks was an important part of growing. Such risks sometimes led to physical fights, arguments, running from the police, or getting into trouble with parents or teachers.

Friends Contribute to Resilience
Whatever the outcome, I learned that being a friend and having friends meant that I could stand or experience almost anything. It didn't act as a motivator to do something that went against my conscience or would result in danger to someone else, but it did mean that I could rely on and trust someone to be there for me when I needed support. Friends have acted as a catalyst to help me maintain resilience, which developmental coach Mike Jay (2006) defines as "the power to persist when things do not work out at first, the capability to navigate ambiguity and uncertainty, the motivation to transcend common problems and barriers, and to collaboratively anticipate the future in sustainable ways."

I have learned that the best way to gain friends is to be a friend. Grey Owl said: "A friend is a gift you give yourself." What I learned from my early days in Rossi Park was that friendship included experiencing things together, supporting each other, challenging each other to do one's best, and most of all, listening to each other's views, feelings, and thoughts. True friendship has a feeling of mutuality; we do for each other what each of us would like to have done for ourselves. Barbara Varenhorst (1983) really sparked that sense for me when she subtitled her book on peer helping, "Becoming the friend you've always wanted to have."

Sometimes I read in the newspaper about someone who has committed what appears to be a horrendous crime. That person also has a friend who is by their side. I often wonder, "how could he or she remain friends with someone who did something like that?" But I know what that's like. I have never committed a crime, but I have been in adverse situations where a risk I took resulted in unwanted public consequences. Yet, my real friends gathered by my side and took the time to let me know they were there for me. In a way, being involved in such events can help to signal the depth of friendship you have with others.

Friendship is Different from Other Relationships
True friendship has some other qualities as well. I wouldn't necessarily call it extrasensory perception, but one of the additional qualities of friendship is knowing to some degree what the other person is thinking. Not continuous mind-reading, but a kind of "mind-melding" or being on the same wave length that occurs when faced with external events. When I was 12, a small group of my friends and I were out walking down a heavily tree-lined street pretty late at night. A car filled with older, tough looking kids pulled over and the passenger leaned out the window. We all froze. He asked us for directions to a certain street. I told him how to get there, and they drove off. After a few seconds, we all looked at each other and realized the directions I had given him were wrong. Immediately, without saying anything to each other, we started to run in the direction of the closest house of a member of our little band. When we got there, we were out of breath, but we knew we had escaped being beaten-up by those older tough guys who were bound to return to find us after they learned we gave them faulty directions. Then we started laughing.

Now, after studying metaphysics, I would call this type of connection a spiritual merging. It is not the same thing as having the same opinions or viewpoints as another person. It is much deeper and more basic. I think when we are younger we may have easier or less guarded access to this kind of connection with others. Maybe as we grow older, various fears we carry with us interfere with our tuning in to the spirit of another person. Since studying the Course in Miracles and reading the work of Gary Zukav, I have a much greater understanding of spiritual wealth and abundance. I am also grateful to my friends for opening themselves up to me in this way.

Another quality I have come to appreciate in friendship is spontaneity. Although it is typical of most friends to make plans or dates with each other or call each other on the telephone to see if it is okay to come over or to ask them over for a certain function or activity, what separates true friends from acquaintances, is the addition of the spontaneous get together. How many people do you know that you can just drop in on without calling first? When I am cycling around the city, there are various friends that I know I can show up at their place and always receive a warm welcome. My close friend and business partner, David, and I always joke about cycling by each other's place so we can drop-in and get free refills of bottled water.

One other thing I have noticed about real friends is that keeping such friends is both hard work and effortless at the same time. Over the years I have had a number of very close friends. But sometimes circumstances occur where we can no longer see each other as often as we did previously. Maybe a marriage, new job, moving to a different city, all contribute to a change in how we lived out our friendship. What I have noticed is that even though we were very close at the time, when a time period intervenes (say a couple of years), and we get back together again (or even have a telephone conversation), it really takes me a while to warm up to or get back to the type of easy back and forth conversation we used to have. This feels very awkward and I have to work at making our friendship become as effortless as it used to be. I know other people that are able to just start up where they left off, without skipping a beat, as if there was no intervening time period. This does not seem possible for me.

I think another quality that stands out for me is the role that a sense of humour plays in friendship. I don't mean just joke telling or exchanging funny stories. I mean the kind of humour that shows a bond between people. The way that each person can laugh or use humour to help the other person face a challenge or deal with a difficult situation. At the same time I don't mean humour that interferes with really listening or puts down or belittles what a friend is going through. I mean the use of humour as a way to show I am with you, we are part of each other, we are in this together.

I can think of many examples of this kind of humour, and I can recall a connection to it from my earliest years. In 1955 my junior high, Roosevelt, was in the city baseball team playoffs and we were playing another junior high, Benjamin Franklin, a team from what was then known as the Black ghetto (or Fillmore District) of the city. Our team was a mix of ethnic and racial groups, including Black, Asian, Latino, and Anglo kids, and the Ben Franklin team was all Black. They were a tough-talking, no-nonsense team and we were a wise-cracking, prank-oriented team. Our team members had all decided to wear aviator sunglasses, the kind that have silvered lenses. Man, did we look cool. We were in the zone and playing well and we were a couple of runs ahead going into the seventh inning. But the tension was building. I was playing first base, and when one of the opposing team players drew a walk, he stood close to me and said, "you white boys might win the game, but we're going to win the punch-out after." It really shook me up.

I called a time-out and motioned to the other infielders and catcher to meet at the pitcher's mound. We looked like we were having a strategy conference, but as soon as the umpire came out to hear what we were saying, we broke it up and went back to our positions. I had told the other guys what the Ben Franklin runner had told me. Our pitcher, who was Latino, and our catcher, who was Japanese, looked at the rest of us and said, "so how do you white boys plan on dealing with it?" It cracked us all up and definitely reduced my tension. When I got back to first base, I said to the Ben Franklin player, "I was just checking with Koko (the pitcher) as to whether we can stick around for the punch-out or whether we had to get to our dancing lessons right away after the game. He said we got time." The other player cracked a big grin, and if we had known about the high five then, we probably would have slapped each other.

Friendship is Brain Food
While the Beatles sang nearly 40 years ago: "I get by with a little help from my friends," neuroscience research is beginning to show that a strong network of friends and family can do more than just help us get by; it can help us live longer, recover from illness faster, function better, and keep our cognitive faculties intact longer. Brenda Patoine, writing in Brain Work, The Neuroscience Newsletter (July-August, 2006) reports on a study that revealed how social networks provide a "protective reserve" capacity that can reduce the likelihood of manifesting Alzheimer's disease. Another study in Baltimore, Maryland and 12 other cities showed that when older adults volunteered as mentors for young people, their cognitive health (problem-solving ability, memory and learning skill, and executive functioning) was boosted. Ms. Patoine concludes, "Dozens of studies have correlated social connectedness with specific health outcomes, among them overall physical functioning, recovery from stroke or cardiovascular disease, and death by any cause."

The Professionalization of Friendship
Some social critics (Putnam, 1996; Salerno, 2005) have argued that formal activities like peer mentoring have shown increases in popularity because social networks and friendships have been eroded (McPherson, et. al., 2006). The normal family and friends network historically available in the US has been replaced by a number of professionalized relationships. People now have to pay to gain the friends they want in their lives. Some coaches are doubling up on this trend by calling themselves 'mentor coaches.' And what was once a fee-free, volunteer activity called mentoring, has seen an increasing number of individuals calling themselves 'mentors' and charging a fee for their services.

I entered the realm of peer assistance because it seemed like a way to share what I'd experienced as the outcomes of friendship to an increased number of people in society. Yet, the practices I created in these areas were never meant to be a replacement for friendship. Instead, I had hoped they would strengthen the importance of friendship and stimulate the desire to develop and maintain friendships. When the results of my first major research project on the needs of adolescents (Carr, 1979) revealed that thousands of students across Canada ranked "making and keeping friends" as their top priority, I knew that we had to create a way for young people to learn how to effectively take control of the friendship process.

While there are (and should be) many similarities between friendship and the practice of peer assistance, friendship provides a unique contribution to our growth. I like the way Thomas Moore in his book SoulMates, describes how friendship is distinct. He says, "We are all made up of many worlds and each friendship brings one or more of those worlds to life. One shares with a friend a unique way of looking at life and experiencing it, and so our friendships perform a kind of astrology of the soul, opening planetary worlds for us, to give our lives culture and meaning."

As peer assistants we can offer friendliness and the attitudes and skills that go with it, but we need to always be working towards helping the people with whom we work to develop and strengthen their own relationships with real friends, not replacing them.

References:
Carr, R. (1979). The theory and practice of peer helping. Victoria, BC: Peer Systems Consulting Group.

eMaxHealth (2006). American's circle of friends is shrinking. (Retrieved August 25, 2006 from http://www.emaxhealth.com/5/6381.html).

Jay, M. (2006). CPR for the soul. Creating personal resilience by design. Mumbai, India: Leadership University Press.

McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., and Brashears, M.E. (June, 2006). Social isolation in America: Changes in core discussion networks over two decades. American Sociological Review, 71, 3, 353-375.

Moore, T. (1994). SoulMates: Honoring the mysteries of love and relationship. New York: Harper Perennial.

Patoine, B. (July-August, 2006). A little help from friends may aid cognition. BrainWork: The Neuroscience Newsletter, 16, 4, 3+.

Putnam, R.D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Salerno, S. (2005). SHAM: How the self-help movement made America helpless. New York: Crown Publishers.

Varenhorst, B. (1983). Real friends: Becoming the friend you'd like to have. San Francisco: Harper & Row.

Zukav, G. (1990). The seat of the soul. New York: The Free Press.

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"The glory of friendship is not in the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is in the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him."

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~
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JOIN THE PEER RESOURCES NETWORK AND RECEIVE A BONUS

Do you know someone who could benefit from becoming a member of the Peer Resources Network? Although you are receiving this free newsletter every 45-60 days, members of the Peer Resources Network receive a monthly newsletter, the Peer Bulletin, with additional information, practical tips, announcements, mentor program descriptions, funding opportunities and job openings in mentoring and mentoring research summaries every month.

Do the quotes placed in this newsletter intrigue you? Would you like to know more about the people quoted or read more of what they have to say? Members of the Peer Resources Network receive links and more details regarding each quote when they receive the monthly Peer Bulletin.

In addition Peer Resources Network members receive toll-free coaching and consultation for all peer program development issues as an additional benefit of membership. Members also receive print versions of Compass: A Magazine for Peer Assistance, Mentorship and Coaching. This magazine has become the only advertising-free, professional, peer-reviewed publication on peer coaching and peer assistance, and is filled with timely articles and practical suggestions from experienced peer program leaders.

The Peer Resources Network is a non-profit organization and is sustained through memberships. The low fee for a one-year individual membership is $75.00 and the fee for an institutional membership, which allows up to five people to share a full membership, is $140.00 for a year. We even have a student rate of $32.10/year. For more details on the benefits as well as a secure online form to sign-up, go to http://www.peer.ca/PRN.html.

As a bonus for readers of The Peer News who become members of the Peer Resources Network during October-November, 2006, we will send you at no additional cost a CD that contains the three past issues and the current issue of Compass: A Magazine for Peer Assistance, Mentorship and Coaching as well as the past 12 months of the Peer Bulletin. This CD is free to PRN members and will be sent by postal mail at no cost to any individual category member or the group leader of any institutional membership.

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"I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing."

~ Katherine Mansfield~
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ATTEND A PEER CONFERENCE OR RELATED EVENT

National Training Institute for School-Based Mentoring
October 10-12, 2006
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Kansas City, Missouri
mentormap.org/documents/Traininginstituteinfo.pdf
(816) 842-7082

Minnesota's Mentoring Conference 2006
October 16, 2006
Carleton College, Sayles-Hill Campus, Northfield, Minnesota
www.mentoringworks.org
(612) 370-9180
mentor@mentoringworks.org

Michigan's Mentoring Conference
October 25, 2006
Michigan State University, MSU Union, East Lansing, Michigan
mentormichigan@michigan.gov
(517) 373-4200
vasilionk@michigan.gov

Minnesota's Mentoring Conference 2006
October 26, 2006
Holiday Inn, Duluth, Minnesota
www.mentoringworks.org
(612) 370-9180
mentor@mentoringworks.org

National Association of Peer Programs Annual Conference
November 8-10, 2006 (Training Institute)
November 10-12, 2006 (Conference)
Sheraton Hotel, Providence, Rhode Island
www.peerprograms.org
(877) 314-733
LcharleyNAPP@aol.com

PAL® Peer Assistance Leadership Program: Secondary Advisor Training
November 13-14, 2006
Costa Mesa Neighborhood Center, 1845 Park, Costa Mesa, California
www.ocde.us/pal
(714) 966-4358
eshattuck@ocde.us

PAL® Peer Assistance Leadership Program: Elementary Advisor Training
November 15-16, 2006
Costa Mesa Neighborhood Center, 1845 Park, Costa Mesa, California
www.ocde.us/pal
(714) 966-4358
eshattuck@ocde.us

International Recovery Perspectives (with Peer Support)
November 16-17, 2006
Hart House, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario
(416) 285-7996 ext 227
bmckinnon@iprimus.ca

Peer Minister: Certified Facilitator Training
November 30-December 2, 2006
Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Rochester, Minnesota
www.peerministry.org
(952) 405-7306

Peer Coaching in the Workplace
December 1, 2006
www.peer.ca/trng.html
(800) 567-3700 or (250) 595-3503
rcarr@peer.ca

PAL® Peer Assistance Leadership Program: Elementary Advisor Training
February 13-14, 2007
OCDE, 200 Kalums Drive, Costa Mesa, California
www.ocde.us/pal
(714) 966-4358
eshattuck@ocde.us

PAL® Peer Assistance Leadership Program: Elementary Advisor Training
February 20-21, 2007
OCDE, 200 Kalums Drive, Costa Mesa, California
www.ocde.us/pal
(714) 966-4358
eshattuck@ocde.us

PAL® Peer Assistance Leadership Program: Elementary Conflict Managers Training
February 27-28, 2007
OCDE, 200 Kalums Drive, Costa Mesa, California
www.ocde.us/pal
(714) 966-4358
eshattuck@ocde.us

International Mentoring Association Conference
March 22-24, 2007
Renaissance Atlanta Hotel Downtown, Atlanta, Georgia
www.mentoring-association.org
(269) 387-4174
cedu_ima@wmich.edu

PAL® Peer Assistance Leadership Program: Secondary Conflict Mediation Training
June 5-6, 2007
OCDE, 200 Kalums Drive, Costa Mesa, California
www.ocde.us/pal
(714) 966-4358
eshattuck@ocde.us

3rd National School-Based Mentoring Conference
June 13-14, 2007
Kansas City, Missouri
www.mentormap.org
(816) 842-7082

Advanced Training for Certified Peer Trainers (First Nations, Diversity)
July 7-8, 2007
University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia
www.peer.ca/trng.html
(800) 567-3700 or (250) 595-3503
rcarr@mentors.ca

Comprehensive Training for Peer Program Development (First Nations, Diversity)
July 9-13, 2007
University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia
www.peer.ca/trng.html
(800) 567-3700 or (250) 595-3503
rcarr@mentors.ca

For additional peer conferences, training workshops or events as well as to learn about what you missed, go to http://www.peer.ca/peerevents.html.

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"Friendship...is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything."

~ Muhammad Ali ~
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RESEARCH and RESOURCES TO STRENGTHEN PEER PRACTICE

Peer Resources continually scans the professional and popular published literature to find articles of interest to people involved in peer assistance. In some cases the complete article is available; however, only Peer Resources Network members have access to the full article. Three of several hundred recent additions to the searchable, annotated bibliography at http://www.peer.ca/SearchB.html are:

Dubois, D.L. and Karcher, M.J. (Eds.). (2005). Handbook of youth mentoring. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

This book synthesizes current theory, research, and practice in the field of youth mentoring. The editors, along with leading experts in the field, offer critical and informative analyses of the full spectrum of topics. They examine formal mentoring, natural mentoring relationships, youth mentoring programs for juvenile offenders, pregnant teens, gifted and talented students, abused and neglected youth, and youth with disabilities, and topics such as stages of mentoring relationships, developmental perspectives, types of programs, and a variety of policy issues. The emphasis of the handbook is on the central role of research, both as a testing ground for theory, and as an essential guide for decision-making in all areas of practice.

Kurtz, S., Stone, J.L., and Holbrook, T. (May, 2002). Clinically sensitive peer-assisted mediation in mental health settings. Health and Social Work, 27, 2, 155-159.

In the last few years, peer assistance has increased in a variety of areas and one of the more challenging directions is the use of peers in mental health settings. Often called peer-based mental health consumer or survivor support, these programs are at the initial stages of validation and recognition. This commentary article documents that there is increasing evidence that people with mental illness can benefit from peer support.

Mcmaster, K.L., Fuchs, D., and Fuchs, L.S. (January-March, 2006). Research on peer-assisted learning strategies: The promise and limitations of peer-mediated instruction. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 22, 1, 5-25.

The authors review all the research evaluating the effectiveness of Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) for reading. Nearly fifteen years of research has demonstrated the effectiveness of this class-wide peer tutoring program in improving the reading performance of high-, average-, and low-performing students, including students with disabilities, from kindergarten through high school. PALS activities and procedures for grades two through six, high school, kindergarten, and first grade are reviewed, as well as research indicating its effectiveness and feasibility for classroom implementation. Research exploring student unresponsiveness to PALS is also reviewed. The implications and recommendations for practice are discussed.

Mynard, J., and Almarzouqi, I. (January, 2006). Investigating peer tutoring. ELT Journal, 60, 1, 13-22.

An English language peer tutoring program at a United Arab Emirates university was reviewed to highlight benefits and challenges, and to make informed improvements. The study drew particularly on participant perceptions and observations, and identified various benefits for tutors such as learning through teaching and becoming more responsible while doing something worthwhile to help others. Benefits for tutees included improved levels of self-confidence and English language aptitude. The study also highlighted several challenges associated with the high dependence and low metacognitive awareness demonstrated by the tutees. In addition, tutors were not always able to offer appropriate assistance. Improvements to the program could include increasing faculty involvement, improving tutee awareness of the aims of the program, and providing additional assistance to tutors.

Padget, A., Bell, M.L., Shamblen, S.R., and Ringwall, C. (2005). Effects on high school students of teaching a cross-age alcohol prevention program. Journal of Drug Education, 35, 3, 210-216.

High school students enrolled in a peer helping course taught elementary students an alcohol use prevention and vehicle safety program. Compared to a control group, the peer helpers gained knowledge of alcohol's effects, increased their perceptions of the risks of high levels of alcohol use, gained teaching skills, and showed less frequent episodes of binge drinking. No effects were found for attitudes toward future drinking, perceptions of the risk of low levels of alcohol use, alcohol use, or vehicle safety. This cross-age prevention program may be successful in changing high school students' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding high levels, but not low levels, of alcohol use.

Rhodes, J., Spencer, R., Saito, R.N., and Sipe, C.L. (September, 2006). Online mentoring: The promise and challenges of an emerging approach to youth development. The Journal of Primary Prevention, 27, 5, 497-513.

This paper reports on the Digital Heroes Campaign, an electronic mentoring program in which 242 youth were matched with online mentors over a two-year period. Survey, focus group, and interview data, in addition to analyses of the e-mail that pairs exchanged, were examined in order to assess the nature, types, and quality of the relationships that were formed. Despite youths' generally positive self-reports, deep connections between mentors and partners appeared to be relatively rare. The findings suggest that online mentoring programs face significant challenges and that further research is needed to determine under what conditions online mentoring is likely to be most effective. Given the infrequent occurrence of close connections, youth mentoring practitioners and researchers must consider whether online mentoring is likely to promote the kind of "relationships" that might be expected to promote positive youth development. (Contact Jean Rhodes at jean.rhodes@Umb.edu)

Singer, E., and Doornenbal, J. (2006). Learning morality in peer conflict: A study of schoolchildren's narratives about being betrayed by a friend. Childhood: A Global Journal of Child Research, 13, 2, 225-245.

Dutch schoolchildren from varied cultural-ethnic backgrounds discussed their experiences of being betrayed by a friend and the lessons they learned from the experience. In line with earlier social constructivist research in western societies, the authors found that peers and friends acted as highly emotional forums for moral learning. Revealing intimate information led to awareness of two moral issues: the issue of norms of "true" friendship and the issue of the dilemma between conforming to group norms and asserting personal opinions. To develop a personal morality in the context of Dutch schools, the children needed trustworthy friends with whom to share intimate information in order to protect them from the peer group pressure to conform and to avoid being teased.

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"Fear makes strangers of people who would be friends."

~ Shirley MacLaine ~
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PEER CONFERENCE SET TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

The National Association of Peer Programs (NAPP) was founded in 1986 to help adults establish, train, supervise, maintain and evaluate youth-based peer programs. Every year for the last 20 years, the NAPP (formerly known as the National Peer Helpers Association) has conducted a conference that is considered the premier event for anyone involved with programs that include academic tutoring, prevention education, one-on-one personal support, conflict resolution, peer mediation, mentoring, hotlines, peer ministry, service learning, leadership development and other related youth activities.

This year the conference, which has as its theme, "Connections Count: 20 Years of Making a Difference," will take place at the Sheraton Providence Airport Hotel in Rhode Island. A Training Institute will be held November 8-10 and the conference will take place November 10-12.

The Institute that precedes the conference will feature eight separate one-to-three day workshops: (1) Establish a Peer Helping Program - 3 days; (2) Become a Trainer of Peer Helpers - 2 days; (3) Evaluation: Evidence for Success - 2 days; (4) Leadership Skills in Using Assets in Peer Training with Barbara Varenhorst - 1 day; (5) Peer Assistance and Leadership: The PAL System - 2 days; (6) Peer Leaders as Partners in Crisis Prevention and Support with Alex Kehayan - 1 day; (7) Cultural Diversity: The Kinship Project - 1 day; and (8) NAPP Programmatic Standards and Ethics Tool Kit - half day.

Breakout sessions during the Conference will include Team Builders, Energizers & Icebreakers, Information On The "New" Drugs, Conflict Resolution, Personal Growth Workshops For Adults, Peer Mediation Models for K-12, Suicide Prevention, Peer Ministry, The Internet: Dangers & Wonders, Establishing/Maintaining Peer Programs, Funding Peer Programs, How to Train Peer Educators, Involving Youth in Community Projects, The Teen-Age Brain, Leadership Development, and Program Problem Solving.

In addition the conference will feature motivational key speakers, an opening reception, an NAPP Awards luncheon, a bookstore, exhibit area, and opportunities to explore Providence, Rhode Island.

The opening session (Friday, November 10 at 5:15 p.m.) will feature Off the Curb. This youth outreach program is based in Newport, Rhode Island, and is dedicated to building confidence and esteem in youth through the power of dance. The troupe uses hip hop dance as an alternative to the use of drugs and violence and offers grant funded dance classes to schools, as well as outreach programs to community centers throughout the state.

Conference registration fees are $375 (after October 1). These registration fees include dues for a one-year NAPP membership. The 20th Annual Conference and Training Institute Brochure can be downloaded at http://www.peerprograms.org/Conference/2006_Brochure.doc (word) or http://www.peerprograms.org/Conference/2006_Brochure.pdf (PDF). Registration is available online: http://www.peerprograms.org/Conference/registration/registration.doc

The National Association of Peer Programs is located at PO Box 10627, Gladstone, Missouri 64188-0627. Call Toll-free: (877) 314-7337; fax toll-free: (866) 314-7337 or email: napp@peerprograms.org.

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SUBSCRIBING, UNSUBSCRIBING, COPYRIGHT AND DISTRIBUTION

The Peer News has been provided by Peer Resources. All items in this publication are written by Dr. Rey Carr unless otherwise indicated, and are copyrighted by Peer Resources. Subscriptions are free and can be obtained by sending an email to info@peer.ca. To become a member of the Peer Resources Network and receive a similar monthly publication as well as a print magazine on peer assistance, mentorship and coaching, visit http://www.peer.ca/PRN.html or call 1.800.567.3700 in North America or 1.250.595.3503 outside of North America. To be removed from this mailing list send an email to peernews@peer.ca. Please feel free to pass this newsletter on to a colleague.

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