Peer Support In Action
A Cross-Cultural Review of the Evolution of Peer Support in the UK and Japan
A Project Funded by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
Helen Cowie, Nicky Hutson, Yuichi Toda, George Varnava and Taka Koya
Introduction
Peer support describes a range of activities and systems within which people’s potential to be helpful to one another can be fostered through appropriate training. It has grown in popularity and is now a widely used intervention in primary and secondary schools in the UK and Japan. In this project, we plan to review the history of peer support in each of the two countries, and the main methods employed. We will then discuss the impact that peer support interventions have had in schools and review the research evidence in each country. We will explore commonalities and differences and the ways in which peer support can be adapted to different cultural contexts. Finally we will draw some conclusions about what we can learn from one another and how a collaborative partnership can enhance knowledge and practice in each of the two countries today.
We will be working collaboratively with schools and peer support networks in both the UK and Japan to document their peer support schemes and to gather important information about how peer support is practised in the two different contexts. Partners in the two countries have already gathered useful information. Nicky Hutson and Helen Cowie are working with the Suffolk Peer Support and Mentoring Network to document their methods of working. George Varnava has been interviewing pupils about their perceptions and experiences of Checkpoints for Young People at the same time as similar interviews are being carried out by Takamasa Koyama in Tokyo. During August 2006 Helen Cowie and Yuichi Toda interview and film peer supporters in Osaka and Tottori. In the spring of 2007 Nicky Hutson, George Varnava and Helen Cowie will visit Japan again to complete data collection and to consolidate the findings.
We will continue to write updates as the project progresses.
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