Assembling Your Team
Strength In Diversity
Your Primary Coordinator and Adult Advisors will work with your site or school staff to nominate and recruit a group of Peer Leaders from across the social network of the site or school. Your Peer Leader team needs to be diverse, as
a diverse Sources of Strength team is a fidelity requirement, not a recommendation.
The Peer Leader team should reflect your school and community regarding racial and ethnic identity, gender and sexuality, religious affiliation, abilities, grade level, socioeconomic experience, and culture. The Peer Leader team should be socially diverse as well and represent as many of the social networks, cafeteria tables, clubs, cliques, and groups in the school and community. It is especially important to identify peers who influence these diverse social groups.
Training
It is optimal to train approximately 6-12% of the total student population as Peer Leaders to positively change school or site norms and culture through Sources of Strength messaging.
- Depending on the size of the site, some teams may train 6-12% of students in their first year of implementing the program. Larger sites may need additional years to achieve this goal through partnership and collaborative initiatives.
- Choosing the number of Peer Leaders should be determined in collaboration with the Sources of Strength team, administration, Primary Coordinator, and Adult Advisors before starting recruitment.
Peer Leader Recruitment, Invitation, and Permission Forms
These templates (in English and Spanish) are designed to support you in the pre-training recruitment process.
The Peer Leader nomination template is your first step and should be shared with adults in the school/sites. For sites in Year 2+ of implementation, share the Peer-to-Peer nomination template with the Peer Leader team.
Next, you'll want to invite the Peer Leaders directly to the program. Use the Peer Leader Invitation template to provide them with more information on their nomination and the next steps.
The final step is to notify the Peer Leader's households that they were nominated and gain permission to participate in the program.
For all templates, please copy/paste the content of these letters into your own document. This will allow for any necessary edits and personalization of the appearance and language (i.e. add your letterhead, school policies, etc.).
Building a Community of Strength
Together your Adult Advisors and Peer Leaders will meet regularly and form a Community of Strength. We recommend teams meet at least twice a month, for 30-60 minutes, to share and connect, to laugh and play, and to plan events, activities, and initiatives. This team is practicing, building, and sharing stories of Strength. Over time, this team becomes a Community of Strength, especially when it is:
- Diverse and reflective of the broader school and community. Your Sources of Strength team should be diverse in terms of social group, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, class, age, and ability.
- Inclusive in its language, policies, storytelling, and leadership to create brave and strong spaces for everyone involved.
- Collaborative in its strategic partnerships within the school and the broader community (i.e., other peer-led initiatives, groups, clubs, and student activities).
