Q&A
Safety and privacy concerns in peer-to-peer mental health sessions
0:57:13
·
129 sec
Council Member Kristy Marmorato raises concerns about safety and privacy in peer-to-peer mental health sessions. Dr. Erica Lynne Smith clarifies the nature and purpose of peer-to-peer support in schools.
- Peer-to-peer support is not a substitute for clinical mental health services
- The goal is to create awareness and educate students about mental health
- Adult supervision is emphasized for peer-to-peer initiatives
- There is no recording of peer-to-peer interactions
- The importance of guiding students to appropriate professional support is highlighted
Kristy Marmorato
0:57:13
Now I just wanna kinda touch on, like, the safety and well-being of the children.
0:57:18
So when you do have peer to peer or individual sessions, will these be recorded without sound?
0:57:25
Everything will be,
Dr. Erica Lynne Smith
0:57:26
like, weekly.
0:57:27
Talk about peer to peer, right, that's exactly what I'm talking about.
0:57:30
I'm talking about exactly defining what it means to be peer to peer.
0:57:34
Middle schools are 11 year olds.
0:57:36
That's not that we we can't really sort of substitute mental health clinical services through peer to peer work.
0:57:44
K.
0:57:44
Peer to peer work is really looks more like, if you know anything about adult mental health first aid.
0:57:52
It doesn't teach people to be clinical mental health providers.
0:57:57
What it does is that it helps educate individuals to understand what mental health is and is not.
0:58:06
Right?
0:58:06
It doesn't train them to be clinicians.
0:58:09
It doesn't train them to provide treatment.
0:58:12
It creates awareness and mental hygiene around what the system looks like, how you seek help, and what peer to peer peer is intended to do is not replace clinicians at all.
0:58:26
Anytime we talk to people who want to get into schools and work with students, we make sure that there is a component of having someone on-site through the sponsoring of these types of clubs that is the adult who is either allied with mental health or is a mental health professional, to be able to guide students to listen without judgment to their peers because adolescents, developmentally, rely on their peers more than they do adults.
0:59:01
That's just nothing we can do about that.
0:59:05
But we want peers to be able to guide their friends to the supports that they may need.
Kristy Marmorato
0:59:13
But these will be recorded?
0:59:14
Anything like any interaction?
0:59:16
No.
0:59:17
They will not be visual recording?
Dr. Erica Lynne Smith
0:59:19
Treatment.
0:59:19
There is no treatment associated with this.
0:59:21
This is not a
Kristy Marmorato
0:59:22
treatment source.
0:59:23
And then when you do have individual sessions and you do there is it gets to a point where they do have With a clinician?
