Center for Prevention and Outreach Peer Education Program
The Center for Prevention and Outreach's (CPO) Peer Education Program is a credit bearing internship experience. Peer Educators will receive 1 or 3 credits per semester for their work and time spent with CPO. This internship experience is for one academic year (and can be repeated year after year)!
What does a Peer Educator do?
Peer Educators serve as liaisons between our college students and the professional staff. Let's be real, most students would prefer to talk about CPO's topics with a peer. We totally understand that! That is why we train Peer Educators each year to help us spread our message.
Peer Educators educate their peers about all things health and wellness, empower their friends to make healthy decisions and connect them to resources when needed. This includes tabling around campus, informal conversations with peers, assisting with and even conducting workshops and trainings, creating health communication messaging (check out our Instagram for some examples of past work) and serving as a student voice on various University wide committees. CPO's topic areas include:
- Alcohol and Other Drugs and Recovery
- Mental Health Awareness and Suicide Prevention
- Interpersonal Violence Prevention and Healthy Relationship Education
- Health Education and Disease Prevention
What does a Peer Educator gain from their experience?
In addition to the EXT+ credit, Peer Educators develop public speaking, presentation, organizational, creative and collaborative skills. We offer weekly professional development and team development opportunities. These include learning how to speak about your internship experience during interviews and meeting with alumni of our program to learn how their experience shaped them. Interns also create long lasting friendships with their fellow Peer Educators.
How do I apply?
Our 2024-2025 Peer Education cohort is currently full.
We will begin the application process for the 2025-2026 cohort in Fall 2024. If you are interested in becoming a peer educator and would like to receive updates please complete this form.
The application process includes a mandatory informational session, dates are listed on our SB Engaged page, an online application, a group interview and an individual interview with professional staff.
2025-2026 Application Requirements
You are encouraged to get involved with CPO by attending workshops, trainings and other events. This will help familiarize you with the work we do while also making connections with our student and professional staff. Additional information on application requirements will be made available in Fall 2024.