ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that there are three broad types of peer counselling and support, each overlapping to an extent with one another – befriending, counselling approaches and conflict resolution. Peer counselling seems to flourish in settings where there is an already established system for working together and in cooperation with one another and where people support the values of caring about others and helping people to help themselves. Quarmby used pre- and post-counselling interviews with and accounts by participants in the peer counselling sessions, objective measures of anxiety and a behavioural checklist of self-appraisal. All training programmes which use a counselling approach stress the need for the trainers to be attuned to the feelings of participants and to create awareness and understanding of the limits of the trainees' expertise. Training, it is usually acknowledged, must take account of the specific needs of a given population.
