Adolescents encouraging healthy lifestyles through a peer‐led social marketing intervention: Training and key competencies learned by peer leaders

Abstract

Background Adolescents who participate as peer leaders can benefit and acquire competencies from their peer leadership experience. Objectives To identify the competencies gained by adolescents who participated as peer leaders in a healthy lifestyle study and to determine whether the training characteristics were related to improvement in competencies. Design The present study was part of the European Youth Tackling Obesity (EYTO) project, a multicentre social marketing intervention involving four European countries. Setting and Participants Eighteen peer leaders (aged 13–15 years, three or five leaders per country) from disadvantaged neighbourhoods received training in designing and implementing activities for their peers. Measures The peer leaders' confidence, experience and interest in 11 tasks related to lifelong learning competencies were assessed with questions rated on a colour scale at baseline and at the end of the study. Results The peer leaders demonstrated improvements in experience, confidence and interest in different tasks, such as research, website or logo design, oral presentations, social media use and collaboration with people from other countries. They increased their confidence in management tasks (p = 0.03) and their confidence and experience in communication tasks (p = 0.01). The peer leaders from Spain and Portugal had greater improvements than those from the other countries. Conclusion The peer leaders improved their confidence in management tasks and their confidence and experience in communication tasks. Slight differences were detected in improvement in competencies by country, likely due to the differences in the peer training applied. Recommendations for peer leader training are proposed, although these results should be verified with larger sample size. Patient or Public Contribution The peer leaders contributed to the design and implementation of the training and intervention.

Peer Facilitation: Accelerating Individual, Community, and Societal Change

“…Moreover, Peer Leaders can acquire various competencies after participating in programs across settings (e.g., offline, online, or using social media). First, Peer Leaders can foster basic or personal competencies, including self-confidence, increased connectedness to the self, others, and school (if a Peer Leader is an adolescent ( Llauradó et al, 2022 ), coping with challenges (e.g., not having the right answer), and problem-solving ( Kritz et al, 2020 ; Llauradó et al, 2022 ). Additionally, they may find resolutions to their own challenges and enhance problem-solving skills, while supporting their peers and acting as mentors through actions performed in their daily lives ( Llauradó et al, 2022 ).…”

“…First, Peer Leaders can foster basic or personal competencies, including self-confidence, increased connectedness to the self, others, and school (if a Peer Leader is an adolescent ( Llauradó et al, 2022 ), coping with challenges (e.g., not having the right answer), and problem-solving ( Kritz et al, 2020 ; Llauradó et al, 2022 ). Additionally, they may find resolutions to their own challenges and enhance problem-solving skills, while supporting their peers and acting as mentors through actions performed in their daily lives ( Llauradó et al, 2022 ). Peer Leaders can gain professional competencies including improved leadership, communication, marketing, organizational skills, collaboration, teamwork, and team building ( Eberlein et al, 2008 ; Kritz et al, 2020 ; Llauradó et al, 2022 ).…”

“…Additionally, they may find resolutions to their own challenges and enhance problem-solving skills, while supporting their peers and acting as mentors through actions performed in their daily lives ( Llauradó et al, 2022 ). Peer Leaders can gain professional competencies including improved leadership, communication, marketing, organizational skills, collaboration, teamwork, and team building ( Eberlein et al, 2008 ; Kritz et al, 2020 ; Llauradó et al, 2022 ). They can also obtain in-depth content knowledge ( Llauradó et al, 2022 ).…”

“…Peer Leaders can gain professional competencies including improved leadership, communication, marketing, organizational skills, collaboration, teamwork, and team building ( Eberlein et al, 2008 ; Kritz et al, 2020 ; Llauradó et al, 2022 ). They can also obtain in-depth content knowledge ( Llauradó et al, 2022 ). These critical competencies are relevant and can be frequently used in their future career and contribute to improving academic or job performance and improved health outcomes ( Kritz et al, 2020 ; Llauradó et al, 2022 ; Tracy & Wallace, 2016 ).…”

“…The existing literature identifies several key attributes for Peer Leaders, such as being optimistic, inclusive, compassionate, entertaining, adaptable, caring, encouraging, and having robust communication and interpersonal skills ( Kritz et al, 2020 ; Eberlein et al, 2008 ). Also, Peer Leaders should have accurate knowledge, passion for specific areas of interest, and be nonjudgmental ( Llauradó et al, 2022 ; Sun et al, 2017 ). As authenticity is an essential quality for Peer Leaders, they are often expected to have lived experience with the circumstances shared by the group (e.g., survivors of intimate partner violence [IPV] facilitating groups for IPV survivors).…”