Research Report into Peer Education

The Final Research Report based on the ‘Apprentice Trainers’ involved with the Young Movers programme is now available (copy attached).

The Apprentice Trainer Programme was our way of training up young people to deliver the training on our courses. The programme was never originally designed to be led by young people - our focus was to provide good training courses. We started by using the model used on the adult programmes at the National Communities Resource Centre which is to tender out and bring in external consultants and trainers. As we ran courses this way we also started to get an interest from people wanting to volunteer for courses - so we took some of these on and then eventually there came a point where I realised we should be making better use of the skills that volunteers had. So we did this bit by bit and then we got to a point where I got the most involved volunteers together and asked them if they thought they were capable of running courses themselves. A small group of us led a few courses and then finally we got to a point where we set up a structured programme to take on young people as Trainers and this is what became the Apprentice Trainer Programme.

Theres nothing new about young people acting as peer educators but I think the Apprentice Programme was particularly interesting - partly because the young people didn’t just train their peers - they also trained adults, also the diversity of the people they worked with was huge - but by far the most interesting aspect of the programme is the level of commitment made. Young people involved traveled from Ireland, London, North Wales, Worcester, Newcastle, Barrow in Furness and some places in between to work together, working with very challenging people for long hours - and they did this for years (and continue to!).

So how did we motivate young people to give this level of commitment? - money, accredited certificates, qualifications? No - none of those.

“There was some evidence to suggest that the shift of commitment towards Young Movers may have been because Young Movers offered a more regular and definite structure, higher levels of discipline given and required, more variety of task, a higher level of activity and commitment, higher levels of responsibility and challenge, and clearer opportunities for progression and development. This is in addition to the social benefits that Apprentices got from being around a close group and having friendships that developed over time.”

This is something I’ve said before - what matters is not the ‘incentives’ you provide or try to use to entice involvement - what does matter is the experience young people have - whether they feel its worthwhile and enjoyable. And to provide this experience there needs to be a clear plan - a vision and a structure:

“The Apprentices were reasoned and realistic about how engagement should happen. This showed the impact of the Apprentice Trainers’ own apprentice training, which was careful to emphasise the great potential for youth involvement is more likely to be effective if it is done with clear aims, adult backing and support, a realistic goal and appropriate scale, is done through discussion, education, understanding of the constraints, and compromise. “

You can read more about the programme and particularly the young people who were involved as Apprentices in the report.

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