Intervention Summary
Peer Assistance and Leadership (PAL)
Peer Assistance and Leadership (PAL) is a peer helping program that seeks to build resiliency in youth by pairing youth with peer helpers who receive training and support from teachers participating in the program. The peer-based assistance provided through PAL is designed to help youth avoid risk factors for substance use as well as other problems, such as low achievement in school, dropout, absenteeism, violence, teen pregnancy, and suicide. PAL peer helpers act as guides, tutors, mentors, and mediators to peers or younger students (PAL mentees) by utilizing skills learned through PAL, including cultural competency, effective communication, decisionmaking, higher order thinking, and resiliency building. PAL peer helpers are placed in helping roles with younger students from feeder campuses and peers from their own campus. Through a combination of leadership and assistance, they offer individual and group peer support, tutoring, welcoming and orientation of new students, assistance to students with special needs, classroom presentations, and school/community outreach projects. PAL mentees generally are referred to the program by a contact person at the service site because of concerns about the students' school performance (e.g., absences, tardiness, academic achievement) or personal or other problems. Students also can request to be referred to a PAL peer helper. PAL mentees are linked to specific peer helpers based on the needs of the PAL mentee and the skills and interests of the PAL peer helper.
Teachers recruit, train, monitor, and evaluate the performance of the PAL peer helpers. The PAL teacher's manuals (separate versions for high school and middle school) provide the foundation for teacher training, covering program orientation and the recruitment, selection, training, supervision, evaluation, and maintenance of student participants. An elementary advisor manual is available for educators serving elementary schools. The PAL student handbooks (separate versions for high school and middle school) provide instructions, worksheets, sample forms, and activities for peer helpers to use with their mentees.
Descriptive Information
Areas of Interest | Substance use disorder prevention |
Outcomes |
1: Academic performance 2: Classroom attendance 3: Classroom behavior 4: Relationships with family, peers, and school |
Outcome Categories |
Education Family/relationships Social functioning |
Ages |
6-12 (Childhood) 13-17 (Adolescent) |
Genders |
Male Female |
Races/Ethnicities |
Asian Black or African American Hispanic or Latino White Race/ethnicity unspecified |
Settings | School |
Geographic Locations |
Urban Suburban Rural and/or frontier |
Implementation History | PAL began in combining peer assistance and peer leadership strategies originally developed. Over the past 15 years, these basic prevention strategies have been expanded, evolving the peer helping program from an informal, extracurricular activity in a single school district to a formally structured, curriculum-based program that has been adopted by the Texas Education Agency as an accredited elective course. Over 750 school districts throughout Texas have requested services from PAL Services Workers Assistance Program, Inc. (WAP), and WAP has documented substantiated the use of PAL in over 1,000 elementary, middle, and high schools in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Washington. |
NIH Funding/CER Studies |
Partially/fully funded by National Institutes of Health: No Evaluated in comparative effectiveness research studies: No |
Adaptations | No population- or culture-specific adaptations of the intervention were identified by the developer. |
Adverse Effects | No adverse effects, concerns, or unintended consequences were identified by the developer. |
IOM Prevention Categories |
Universal Selective |
Quality of Research
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Readiness for Dissemination
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Costs
The cost information below was provided by the developer. Although this cost information may have been updated by the developer since the time of review, it may not reflect the current costs or availability of items (including newly developed or discontinued items). The implementation point of contact can provide current information and discuss implementation requirements.
Additional Information
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