Because of the exceptional work our Peer Leaders have put in throughout the year, The PEERS Project will be hosting a celebration event on April 25th from 6-8 p.m. to recognize our Peer Leader and their accomplishments.

Food and Fun

The event will be hosted by our Young Adult Mentors and include dinner, a photo booth, a skit competition, and a game show, all at no cost to the Peer Leaders or their families. This will be a great way for the Peer Leaders to celebrate the end of the year and all their hard work!

Location and Parking

The event will be held April 25th from 6-8 p.m. at the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, 1400 N. Meridian St., Indianapolis, IN 46202. Parking is free in the Archdiocese parking lot between Meridian and Illinois.

If you or your business is interested in sponsoring the event download our Sponsorship Packet, complete, and send it in.

We hope to see you there!

This skit contest with the theme “What Has Peers Taught Me” is open to all PEERS PROJECT Peer Leaders with a limit of one skit entry per student or group. The skit can be created by an individual student or as a group project. Prizes will be awarded winning individual or group.

Create

Create a short skit using the theme of “What Has Peers Taught Me” . The skit’s purpose is to show how the lessons taught by Peers can carry over into everyday life. This can include but is not limited to how teens can say no to risky behaviors, how they can avoid peer pressure, or acting out cognitive dissonance.

Technical specifications:

Skits should be 2-5 minutes in length. The skits cannot match any of the skits in the PEERS curriculum.

NOTE: The skit must be an original work. No copyrighted material (music, images, etc.) or trademarks (company names, logos, brands, etc.) may be used unless you own or have a license to use the material for this contest. Written permission must be obtained and provided upon request for all copyrighted or trademarked materials.

Compete

1. No entry fees!
2. A written release is required from each person. This authorization assures that those involved know that the skit may be shown publicly without further consent required. The release(s) must accompany the submission form. It must be signed by the participant(s), and if the participant/student is a minor it must be signed by the student’s parent/guardian.
3. Skit content must not promote illegal behavior; discriminate against or support invidious prejudice toward others along ethnic, racial, religious, or sexual grounds; invade the privacy of any person; support or oppose a candidate for elective office or advocate for the passage or defeat of legislation or a ballot measure; or otherwise be inappropriate as determined by The PEERS PROJECT.
4. Judging will be by professionals in media, public relations, and education.

Celebrate

Prizes will be awarded at the 2016-2017 Year End Celebration:

Grand Prize

The winning skit (whether individual student or group) will be posted on The PEERS PROJECT website +$100 cash prize. The grand prize will be awarded based on overall message, use of creativity.

Creativity Prize

The winning individual or group will receive PEERS swag (hoodies, t-shirt, etc).

Authorization
By entrant(s) submitting the skit, it is agreed that THE PEERS PROJECT, a nonprofit organization, has the right to use, reproduce, reprint, distribute, and display the skit for any organizational purpose, without notification, consent or compensation to the entrant(s). THE PEERS PROJECT organizational purpose includes, but is not limited to, displaying the skit on peersproject.org website, social media sites, at conferences, events, or other venues. Entrant also agrees that the releases required from participants (see “Compete” section above) have been submitted with the skit entry.

Questions?

Contact Joe Pickard at THE PEERS PROJECT of Indiana. joe@peersproject.org

We are excited to announce a new young adult mentor program for college students 18 – 23 years of age for the 2016-2017 school year.

As a part of the enhanced PEERS Project curriculum, college students are invited to become Young Adult Mentors for the high school PEER Leaders.

As a Young Adult Mentor you will:

• Develop a personal mission statement
• Receive training on the PEERS curriculum and specific health education topics
• Participate in a Peer Leader workshop and campus visit at IUPUI
• Attend 1 practice or presentation of the PEER Leaders
• Host a year end celebration for the PEER Leaders

Young Adult Mentors are expected to:

• Have a desire to live a healthy lifestyle, and seek healthy relationships
• Have a desire to learn about key issues impacting young adults
• Be respectful and sincere in your social media postings (No explicit photos, indications of drug and/or alcohol use, or profanity).

Sound good? Complete the YAM application 2017 and mail (The PEERS Project 1400 N. Meridian Street, Indianapolis, IN 46202) or email (contact@peersproject.org) to apply as a college mentor.

Through a new partnership with Health Ed Pros for the 2016-2017 school year, the PEERS Project is able to offer advanced training for PEER Leaders and additional classroom training and education for the middle school students.

Training for the PEER Leaders will include opportunities for further learning on specific health topics. Middle school students will benefit from Health Ed Pros providing the first classroom lesson to discuss the “uncomfortable” stuff and field specific health questions.

As an organization, the mission of Health Ed Pros is to provide health education programming for students, teachers, and staff. Health Ed Pros staff has over 75 years of combined health education expertise including: curriculum development, staff development, and program delivery for early childhood – adults.

Each year the PEERS Project reaches to business & civic leaders like you to continue our work with the youth in our community. This year we are excited to introduce new sponsorship program that will further benefit both of our organizations.

On April 25th The PEERS Project will be hosting a celebratory event for our Peer Leaders and their families to recognize the achievements of the Peer Leaders throughout the course of the year.

The event will be free for the Leaders and families, so we need your help!

Download the sponsorship packet, complete, and send your payment by March 9.

Thank you for supporting our 150 Peer Leaders who are positively influencing over 2,500 of their peers!

The PEERS Project has been working with Good Vibes Media, Inc. to create training videos for PEERS’ teen leaders. It has been exciting to see how PEERS Educating PEERS 9 lessons were put into script form so that teens across the state will be able to watch the videos on YouTube to learn how to present in the classroom.

The training videos will describe presentation styles and how to engage with the middle school students receiving PEERS. There is also a video which goes into detail about the teen brain and how it works. FYI, the teen brain is extremely different from the adolescent and adult brain. It is crucial for PEER Leaders to understand how their own brain works and the younger teen they are engaging with.

Jordan Southwood, 17 year old Senior at North Montgomery High School was on of 7 actors. Jordan shared, “I thought it (filming) went very well. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed meeting other PEER Leaders from different schools.”

All in all, PEERS hopes this tool will allow teens to learn positive youth develop in a fun and entertaining format.

Check one of our new training videos here.

 

 

 

 

I was definitely living the dream. A scary, fantastic, wonderful dream. I’ve
always wanted to work as an actor professionally, and with And then They
Came for Me, I got that chance.

The people I worked with were amazing. At first it felt very formal and I
was a little nervous, but before long everyone in the cast and crew began to
get to know each other so we all became good friends. There was a lot of love
in our group, and we all accepted and grew with each other throughout the
process.

The show was tough not only emotionally, but also with the aspect of the
staging. It was a very different sort of play because of all of the media
interviews with Holocaust survivors Eva Schloss and Ed Silberberg. Their
interviews would come in during scenes, which was very different for me. Also,
the play’s scenes don’t exactly flow. We, the actors, enter in the middle of
scenes, so the scenes wouldn’t always get a chance to build. We would have to
enter, already at the climactic point or the lowest point in the scene- also
something entirely new to me.

The other youth actors and I also had to keep up with all of our
homework without actually attending the classes. I was lucky enough to have an
amazing friend who videotaped my classes for me, so I was able to keep up. We
had to maintain our grades and leadership positions in school, and Zoë and I
were both participating in our school musicals. The stress of the schoolwork
only added to our emotions during the show, so in a way it was sort of helpful.

All in all, I know that this experience has helped me to grow. It was an
amazing theatrical and emotional experience, and I met some amazing people that
I am not likely to forget. I only hope I get the opportunity to return to the
IRT so that I can have more amazing experiences there. I can only learn more
each time.

http://issuu.com/joepickard/docs/peers_annual_report-_final_for_pres