As a student new to Bryn Mawr in the sixth grade, Blien Habtu ’17 faced a situation in which countless other students have found themselves: making new friends and becoming comfortable in a new school. One of the first activities she remembers helping with her transition was Bryn Mawr’s Peer Education program. “It was really nice to have older role models to look up to,” Habtu says. “We got to meet these incredible older girls and talk about life and friendship. That’s such an important thing in the sixth grade.”

After such a positive experience, it seemed very natural that, three years later when Habtu was finishing her ninth grade year, she would apply to become a Peer Educator herself. “I was really influenced by it, and so I wanted to take this opportunity and do the same thing for someone else,” Habtu says.

Now a senior, Habtu has worked with the program for three years. Not only has it allowed her to make a positive impact on younger students, but it has also affected the way she lives her own life. “It has made me a better friend, and helped me know what to do in situations that I never really thought I would have to deal with,” she reflects.

Habtu is just one of thousands of Baltimore students who have been reached through the Christopher O’Neil Peer Education Program. First established in 1994 at Loyola Blakefield, the program was created by Pam and Tom O’Neil in memory of their son, Christopher, who was killed in 1992 at the age of 17 in a car accident involving a teenage drunk driver. Today, 11 different Baltimore independent schools take part in the program, the overarching goal of which is to educate students about a range of topics connected to physical and emotional wellbeing.

Bryn Mawr’s chapter of the program began in 1995; the school was the second member-school to join. Although the goals of the program are the same, each school runs its chapter slightly differently, says Upper School Counselor Vicki Mermelstein, who oversees the program at Bryn Mawr. “We target girls in the fifth and sixth grades, because that’s when peer influence becomes stronger,” Mermelstein says. “Our focus is not necessarily about drugs and alcohol, but about how to make good decisions.”

Each fall, current ninth graders are invited to apply for one of the six Peer Educator spots available for their grade. The hope is that the girls selected will remain with the program throughout the duration of their Upper School careers, providing a total of 18 Peer Educators across the tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades. The program is considered a leadership opportunity on par with other school-wide organizations.

For Rachel Bogin ’17, Peer Education has been a defining experience of her Upper School experience. Bogin was new to Bryn Mawr in the ninth grade, and came from a school she had attended since kindergarten. “At first, I struggled to find my place and navigate the basics of academic and social life,” Bogin says. “After I got more comfortable, I really wanted to reach out to other students who may be struggling to navigate these things too.”

As part of the program, Peer Educators are expected to create formal lesson plans, which they then team-teach to fifth and sixth grade advisories. Bogin says that this experience has helped her become more flexible. “Now, I sort of roll with the punches,” she says. “I’m not as much of a perfectionist – both in my lessons and in life. I realize that if things take a different turn that’s OK, and that the girls might get more out of the lesson if we adapt it to their individual experiences, versus just the lesson plan that I have laid out.”

One reason that the Peer Education program works so well – and the reason that the O’Neils structured it as they did – is the bond that it promotes between the older and younger girls. For Habtu, this is the most rewarding part of the program. “I really love teaching kids in the fifth grade and then seeing them again the following year,” Habtu says. She recalls one student in particular whom she taught for two years and who she is still friends with. “Just seeing how I was able to make that much of a bond with this student, that made everything feel worth it.”

Bogin says that fifth and sixth graders are the perfect age for this program, as they idolize high schoolers. “They’re so impressionable, and they’re at this age where it’s very crucial that they learn how to deal with some of the more difficult situations,” she says. “They’re just starting their adolescence, where a lot of things are going to be changing and a lot of things are going to be beyond their control, so for them to have someone to look up to is so crucial.”

Given that the program has existed for more than two decades, one of the perennial challenges is keeping the material feeling fresh and relevant to the lives of today’s fifth and sixth graders. To that end, part of the work that Peer Educators are charged with is adjusting lessons to take this into account. For example, recently, the girls worked to change a lesson about talking behind another student’s back to incorporate a social media component. “Things like Instagram and SnapChat – that’s their main means of communication,” Bogin says of the younger students. “It’s really difficult to know how to handle [a conflict on social media] in a way that won’t make you look bad with your peers, but that also ensures you are standing up for yourself. We are guides for them – we don’t do anything for them, but help them figure out how to handle it on their own.”

Mermelstein says that over the years, she has been consistently impressed with how adept the Peer Educators are at adjusting the lessons to meet the needs of the younger students. “Just when we think it’s getting stale because the lessons have been similar for many years, they change it up and take it in a different direction,” she says. “It’s fascinating and wonderful to watch.”