Peer Support Groups

Link Crew

Link Crew is a high school transition program that welcomes freshmen and makes them feel comfortable throughout the first year of their high school experience. Built on the belief that students can help students succeed, juniors and seniors are trained to be Link Crew Leaders. Link Crew Leaders are positive role models, mentors and student leaders who guide the freshmen to discover what it takes to be successful during the transition to high school and help facilitate freshman success.

More and more studies show that if students have a positive experience their first year in high school, their chance for success increases dramatically. Link Crew provides the structure for freshmen to receive support and guidance from juniors and seniors who have been through the challenges that high school poses, and understand that the transition to a larger school can sometimes be overwhelming.

Link Crew’s goal is to provide schools with a structure in which students make real connections with each other thus increasing school safety and reducing incidence of bullying with anti-bullying education. Through this program, freshmen learn that people at school care about them and their success and leaders experience increased self-esteem as well as overall character development.

The following high schools have a Link Crew:

  • Allen D. Nease High School
  • Bartram Trail High School
  • Creekside High School
  • Pedro Menendez High School
  • Ponte Vedra High School
  • St. Augustine High School

For more information about Link Crew, please visit the website of The Boomerang Project.


WEB

WEB, which stands for “Where Everybody Belongs”, is a middle school orientation and transition program that welcomes 6th/7th graders and makes them feel comfortable throughout the first year of their middle school experience. Built on the belief that students can help students succeed, the program trains mentors from the 8th grade class to be WEB Leaders. WEB Leaders are positive role models, mentors and student leaders who guide the 6th/7th graders to discover what it takes to be successful during the transition to middle school and help facilitate 6th/7th grade success.

More and more studies show that if students have a positive experience their first year in middle school, their chances for success increase dramatically. WEB provides the structure for 6th/7th graders to receive support and guidance from 8th graders who have been through the challenges that middle school poses and understand that the transition to a larger school can sometimes be overwhelming.

WEB also acts as an anti-bullying program for your school by providing it with a cadre of student leaders who look for bullying behavior and help stop it. WEB gives older students permission to be aware of and report any negative behavior they see, creating a safer school for everybody.

The following middle schools have WEB Leaders:

  • Alice B. Landrum Middle School
  • Fruit Cove Middle School
  • Gamble Rogers Middle School
  • Pacetti Bay Middle School
  • R. J. Murray Middle School
  • Sebastian Middle School
  • Switzerland Point Middle School

For more information about WEB, please visit the website of The Boomerang Project.


Sources of Strength

Sources of Strength is a best practice youth suicide prevention project designed to harness the power of peer social networks to change unhealthy norms and culture, ultimately preventing suicide, bullying, and substance abuse.  The mission of Sources of Strength is to prevent suicide by increasing help seeking behaviors and promoting connections between peers and caring adults.  Sources of Strength moves beyond a singular focus on risk factions by utilizing an upstream approach for youth suicide prevention. This upstream model strengths multiple sources of support (protective factors) around young individual so that when times get hard they have strengths to rely on.

Sources of Strength is one of the first suicide prevention programs that uses Peer Leaders to enhance protective factors associated with reducing suicide at the school population level.

Sources of Strength has been shown to:

  1. Increase youth-adult connectedness.
  2. Increase Peer Leader’s school engagement.
  3. Peer Leaders in larger schools were four times more likely to refer a suicidal friend to an adult.
  4. Increase positive perceptions of adult support for suicidal youth and the acceptability of seeking help.

High schools with Sources of Strength programs include:

  • Allen D. Nease High School
  • Bartram Trail High School
  • Creekside High School
  • Pedro Menendez High School
  • Ponte Vedra High School
  • St. Augustine High School
  • St. Johns Technical High School

For more information on Sources of Strength, please visit SourcesOfStrength.org.


For additional parent resources, please visit the Guidance and Programs of Choice website.

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