Earlier studies of Peer Support include a brief report from a British psychologist with research interests in the area of bullying, who visited 12 New Zealand secondary schools in 2000 and was full of praise for the New Zealand Peer Support programme (Peer Support New Zealand, 2001). Other studies were done in the 1990s and used limited sampling of one or two schools. Stotter’s exploratory study (1999) of the experiences of Peer Support leaders involved a small sampling from one school in Auckland. Hendrie (1997) was acknowledged by Rotary as the first university managed project on the efficacy of Peer Support (Watson, 2000). However, Hendrie’s study was also limited to sampling from one school in Taranaki. Prior to 1997, Lewis and Scarrold (1989), on behalf of the Department of Education, evaluated two high schools operating Peer Support programmes. Six studies over the past twenty years do not truly reflect the anecdotal evidence that Peer Support is a valuable resource in New Zealand secondary schools.
[pdf-embedder url=”https://betterblokes.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Peer-Support-Trust-of-New-Zealand.pdf” title=”Peer Support Trust of New Zealand”]