ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF A SENIORS' PEER COUNSELING PROGRAM

This paper is about the KNUST Peer Counsellors Program (KPC); an initiative of the KNUST Counselling Center (KCC). Over the years, the number of Peer Counsellors has increased. Students at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) have likewise increased. The aim of the paper was basically to examine the impact of the peer counselling experience on the students who volunteer to be trained and serve as Peer Counsellors. To the best of our knowledge, no study as yet has examined impact of peer counselling among university students in Ghana. Yet, we believe it is a program worth further exploration and development to equip the youth with altruistic values. Reports from the Peer Counsellors affirm the positive impact of the experience on their lives as young people. It projects a viable developmental pathway, career wise, for some of them aside the promotion of own and others wellbeing. Administrative and functional structure of the KPC is described in the paper and recommended as a program for other tertiary institutions to augment formation and education of students. Citation:Owusu-Ansah, F. E., Peasah, O. S. B., De-Graft Adjei, V., Jantuah, S. and Hackman, J. (2021). Challenging and Changing Lives: The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Peer Counseling Program, a Model for Tertiary Institutions. International Journal of Technology and Management Research (IJTMR), Vol. 6 (2): Pp.73-80. Received: January 3, 2021Accepted: September 1, 2021

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Pragmatic Effectiveness of the Loving Support Peer Counseling Program to Increase Breastfeeding Duration Among Nevada WIC Participants

Clinical Lactation ◽

10.1891/2158-0782.9.2.72 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 72-77 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Helen See ◽

Julie Smith-Gagen ◽

Robin Hollen ◽

Larissa L. White ◽

Elizabeth J. Christiansen

Keyword(s):

Real World ◽

Infants And Children ◽

Peer Counseling ◽

Breastfeeding Duration ◽

Counseling Program ◽

New Mothers ◽

Counseling Programs ◽

Breastfeeding Cessation ◽

Intervention Trials

Peer counseling programs are increasingly popular, and intervention trials have established efficacy. However, pragmatic, real-world effectiveness of peer counseling programs are limited, but necessary, to justify funding. This study examined the effectiveness of the Loving Support Peer Counseling (LSPC) program to increase breastfeeding duration and reasons for cessation among Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) participants. In a sample of 178 WIC participants, new mothers who received LSPC breastfed for an average of 8.6 weeks longer relative to mothers who did not receive LSPC (p < .001). Although all mothers cited concerns about infants'’ nutritional uptake, WIC mothers who did not receive LSPC reported frustration as the reason for breastfeeding cessation. This study supports the pragmatic, real-world effectiveness of LSPC among WIC mothers.

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Implementation of a proactive referral tool for child healthcare professionals to encourage and facilitate parental smoking cessation in the Netherlands: a mixed-methods study

BMC Health Services Research ◽

10.1186/s12913-021-06969-1 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Tessa Scheffers-van Schayck ◽

Bethany Hipple Walters ◽

Roy Otten ◽

Marloes Kleinjan

Keyword(s):

Smoking Cessation ◽

The Netherlands ◽

Healthcare Professionals ◽

Counseling Program ◽

Smoking Cessation Counseling ◽

Healthcare Settings ◽

Quit Smoking ◽

Child Healthcare ◽

Referral Tool ◽

The Impact

Abstract Background Recently, the parent-tailored telephone based smoking cessation counseling program ‘Smoke-free Parents’ was shown to be effective in helping parents to quit smoking. To implement this program in child healthcare settings in the Netherlands, the research team developed a proactive referral tool to refer parents to Smoke-free Parents. The aim of the present implementation study was to explore the facilitators, barriers, and suggestions for improvement in the implementation of this referral tool. Methods Child healthcare professionals (N = 68) were recruited via multiple strategies (e.g., social media, mailings, and word of mouth among healthcare professionals) and invited to complete two online (quantitative and qualitative) questionnaires and to participate in a telephone semi-structured qualitative interview between April 2017 and February 2019. In total, 65 child healthcare professionals were included in the analyses. After inductive coding, thematic analyses were performed on the qualitative data. Descriptive analyses were performed on the quantitative data. Results The data from both questionnaires and the telephone interview revealed that the majority of the child healthcare professionals (92.3 % female; average years of working as a healthcare professional: 23.0) found the Smoke-free Parents referral tool accessible and convenient to use. Yet there were several barriers that limited their use of the tool. The data revealed that one of the main barriers that healthcare professionals experienced was parental resistance to smoking cessation assistance. In addition, healthcare professionals noted that they experienced tension when motivating parents to quit smoking, as they were not the parent’s, but the child’s healthcare provider. Additionally, healthcare professionals reported being concerned about the lack of information about the costs of Smoke-free Parents, which limited professionals referring parents to the service. Conclusions Although healthcare professionals reported rather positive experiences with the Smoke-free Parents referral tool, the use of the tool was limited due to barriers. To increase the impact of the Smoke-free Parents telephone-based smoking cessation counseling program via child healthcare settings, it is important to overcome these barriers. Suggestions for improvement in the implementation of the referral tool in child healthcare settings are discussed.

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