ANAHEIM : Dispensing Wisdom of the Younger Ages

Peer counselors are middle school, high school and college students trained to talk to their classmates about their problems.

But the funny thing, they say, is that the counselors get as much benefit as the counseled.

“I probably have been helped as much or more than the people I talk to,” says Stacey Hansen, 18, a senior at Poway High School, north of San Diego. “I’ve learned that I need to deal with people, to listen to them and not to judge them. I can find the good in anybody if I take the time to look.”

About 1,700 high school and college peer counselors and their adult advisers from 100 schools statewide are finishing the two-day California Assn. of Peer Programs convention at the Anaheim Hilton and Towers. On Monday, 585 middle school peer counselors and their advisers will meet at the Inn at the Park.

Michael Donnelly, a guidance counselor at San Gabriel High School and the adviser to his school’s 75-member peer counselor group, said that peer counseling has become more important as public school budgets become tighter and tighter.

Although the specifics vary by school, all peer counselors receive many hours of training before they are allowed to talk with other students. They are trained to deal with routine matters such as how to get into college and with non-routine ones such as racism, potential suicide and drug abuse.

“At my school, we have 3,200 students and six (adult) guidance counselors,” Donnelly said. “That’s a preposterous ratio. Some schools have done away with guidance counselors. But because we have eliminated counselors, that doesn’t mean we have eliminated student needs.”

He said the key to the program is confidentiality. Peer counselors must swear they will not discuss something told to them in confidence. The only exceptions are for suicide threats, death threats and reports of child abuse, which must be reported to school officials.

“Most adolescents would rather talk to another kid than they would an adult,” Donnelly said. “And the kids are the ones who are out there. I sit in an office, but the peer counselors are at the football games, in the locker rooms and the science labs. They are the ears and eyes of school because they know what is going on.”

Rob Sayles, a 19-year-old sophomore at Pepperdine University in Malibu, said that being a peer counselor forced him to deal with some personal problems in his own life.

“Being a peer counselor breaks down a lot of walls,” he said. “It shows you that real people have emotions, and it makes you learn how to deal with problems, that we need to relate with each other and not judge others.”

Donnelly said that as teen-agers, peer counselors get to use the compassion that they otherwise might try to hide.

“Kids are natural helpers,” he said. “Adults are more jaded. But these kids learn that most noble act of love is to help another human being.”