CU Well Peer Ambassador Network Launched to Facilitate Connection Between Students and Health Resources

8 April 2019 – Columbia Health, in partnership with the Residence Hall Leadership Organization (RHLO), General Studies Student Council (GSSC), Undergraduate Student Life, and other campus partners launched the CU Well Peer Ambassador Network in Spring 2019. The student-driven Network will be composed of peer health ambassadors who will serve as a conduit between their populations and available resources to ensure students’ health and well-being.

Recognizing the unique opportunity presented by their roles as student leaders who consistently engage with and advocate for their classmates, leaders from both groups approached Columbia Health in 2018 to explore ways of productively partnering. These conversations led to the creation of the peer health ambassador role. Being directly embedded in student spaces enables peer health ambassadors to lower barriers to accessing information about available resources, provide support, and encourage peers to seek help when they need it.

Peer health ambassadors will also serve as liaisons between students and Columbia Health, sharing questions and feedback they hear from students to help improve programs and services, as well as clarifying any confusing or misleading information.

“Our vision of success for this initiative is that students will access consistent and accurate information about Columbia Health resources to make informed decisions about their health and well-being. Moreover, our hope is that the peer health ambassadors will contribute to normalizing conversations about health and well-being among their peers.” said Dr. Raphael Coleman, Director of Alice! Health Promotion, Columbia Health.

“The students participating in the Network have identified themselves as concerned student leaders who are interested in partnering with Health in caring for the health and well-being of their community. By acting as a conduit to the numerous resources available, peer health ambassadors can destigmatize help-seeking among students .”

Training and institutional support

While the initiative is entirely student-driven, oversight will be provided by an Advisory Board consisting of professional staff from partnering offices: Columbia Health, Undergraduate Student Life, and General Studies Student Life.

A health promotion specialist from Alice! Health Promotion will serve as the convening advisor. Together, the advisors will collaborate with the peer health ambassadors to provide training and share content and programmatic expertise to guide their initiatives.

Each peer health ambassador will undergo a robust training curriculum, including the CU Well Peer Leader Training, to ensure that they are properly equipped to handle the situations that may arise while in the role.

Establishing the foundations of a student-driven effort

The CU Well Peer Ambassador Network will first consist of students of the CU Well Peer Leader Program (an existing program of Alice! Health Promotion that recruits undergraduate students to facilitate conversations about substance use and stress during New Student Orientation) and students who are selected as RHLO Health and Wellness Ambassadors and GSSC Health Ambassadors. Alice! is supporting both groups with their recruitment and selection strategy for this inaugural period.

Columbia Health and the student leaders are finalizing peer health ambassadors’ responsibilities, recognizing that each group may vary in their capacity based on the populations they serve. Some of these responsibilities include hosting ‘office hours’ to direct students to appropriate resources and facilitate access in case of obstacles, giving health and well-being related presentations as requested, and communicating health-related issues that affect peers to student group leadership, among others. Peer health ambassadors will also meet periodically with other ambassadors for cross-learning opportunities, their advisor for supervision, and Columbia Health for dialogue on student concerns and suggestions.

Once the framework and processes have been established for the Network, Columbia Health and its partners hope to expand this effort to include graduate student populations and other student groups.

While the CU Well Peer Ambassador Network is an independent initiative, it supports one of the goals of the JED-Columbia Strategic Plan to enhance student  health and well-being on campus. Specifically, the ambassador network augments efforts to train campus community members to identify, reach out to and refer students who may be struggling (Objective 6).

Columbia Health looks forward to working with RHLO, GSSC and various campus partners to build a collaborative peer health ambassador model that will advance the health and well-being of the Columbia University campus community through purposeful educational and advocacy efforts.