Start Your Own Peer Education Program

Introduction. How to Use This Guide

Chapter I. The Need for HIV/STI Prevention Peer Education—Reviews young people's need for HIV/STI prevention education and summarizes the research that shows peer education works.

Chapter II. Building Support for a Peer Education Program—Highlights the importance of strong support from many different groups in the community. The chapter tells you who you can find to support the program and outlines nine reasons why teens need education to prevent HIV and STI and why peer education fills that need. The chapter also presents convincing arguments to counter possible opposition to the program.

Chapter III. Planning the Program and Finding Funding—Focuses on comprehensive planning. You need money and a plan. This chapter shows you how to get started.

Chapter IV. Selecting and Training Staff and Recruiting TAP Members—Focuses on important qualities to look for in recruiting staff and provides guidelines for recruiting youth.

Chapter V. Training Youth to Be Peer Educators—Outlines 12 sessions, amounting to about 22 hours of activities that will provide information and skills relating to HIV/STI prevention.

Chapter VI. Youth Developing Activities to Educate Their Peers—Describes some educational efforts that peer educators can design and implement and suggests approaches to supporting their efforts.

Chapter VII. Evaluating the Peer Education Program—Provides guidelines for assessing the success of the TAP program and a sample evaluation instrument.

Chapter VIII. Taking the Message to the Media—Provides basic guidelines on how to interact with the media.

Appendix—Provides resource organizations and web sites for more information. Forms contained in the Guide to Implementing TAP—such as permission slips, tests, and data gathering forms—are duplicated in the appendix.