CARA was thrilled to join colleagues from across the country last month at the NASPA Student Success in Higher Education Conference in Austin for a conversation on the power of peer-to-peer support. Alongside colleagues from ECMC Foundation, Queens College’s Academic Advising Center, and Tacoma Community College’s Center for Student Advocacy and Cultural Support, CARA presented “Unlocking the Power of Peers: Leveraging Peer-to-Peer Programs to Expand Student Support.”

With over 100  partners and leaders in higher education present, we discussed the framework for training, supervising and integrating peer navigators into their current infrastructure and gauged individual readiness. Drawing from CARA’s “Unlocking the Power of Peers” report, we explored an important lesson: while many colleges have peer programs, the strongest models go beyond simply hiring students as peer leaders. We noted that best practice programs invest in:
                • comprehensive training;
                • high quality supervision;
                • meaningful integration of peer leaders into student support systems.

Our partners from  CUNY and TCC highlighted how partnering with CARA to intentionally build and implement the necessary infrastructure has helped their programs to evolve over time. We are grateful to the ECMC Foundation for sponsoring us to present at this conference and further advancing peer-to-peer approaches as a key component of holistic advising within higher education.