The project proposed is to create and evaluate a professionally produced, sixty minute videotape with an accompanying manual on training peer leaders. These materials will be designed to help health educators, prevention specialists or youth workers learn to recruit, train and supervise peer leaders for prevention programs. Peer leaders (lay educators selected from target population and trained in specific skills) are an accepted, and documentably successful, component of health promotion or prevention approaches, particularly those targeting young adolescents. Materials detailing effective methods of training peer leaders, however, are not available. Phase I of this application will select the contents of the video/manual package and develop a draft script. This will be done by : 1. conducting a thorough literature search on peer-led programs to identify exemplars; 2. making on-site observations of these exemplars and collecting relevant materials from the sites; 3. drafting a script based on findings from the observations; and 4. having the draft script reviewed by a focus group of health educators.
