Peer Health Exchange

Peer Health Exchange’s (PHE) mission is to empower young people with the knowledge, skills and resources to make healthy decisions. We do this by training college students to teach a skills-based health curriculum focused on sexual health, mental health and substance use, while allowing young people to develop skills in decision-making, communication and advocacy. Our curriculum also aligns with national health and education standards and is culturally relevant, age-appropriate and medically accurate.

PHE trains college volunteers in various topic areas including teaching skills, trauma-informed approach, power, privilege, oppression and unpacking gender and sexuality in order for them to best support the needs of young people in classrooms.

The Peer Health Exchange chapter at Stanford University will primarily be partnering with schools in the South Bay area, including Aspire East Palo Alto Phoenix Academy in East Palo Alto and Alta Vista Continuation High School in Mountain View. We hope to grow our Stanford chapter to include other high schools in the area.

Service required by group to fulfill a Cardinal Commitment:
4 volunteer positions

• Health Educators: Health Educators (HEs) are in their first year with PHE. HEs teach once per week at an assigned school partner in Redwood City, East Palo Alto, Mountain View, or San Jose, and attend a weekly training at which they can receive feedback on their teaching and have a chance to practice their teaching skills.
• Senior Health Educators: Senior Health Educators (SHEs) are volunteers who choose to join PHE for a second (or more) year. SHEs teach once per week, attend a weekly training and mentor new Health Educators.
• Leadership Council: Members of the Leadership Council are SHEs who have been identified as outstanding health educators whose knowledge can be tapped to improve the teaching quality of all of our volunteers. Members of the Leadership Council teach once per week, and manage up to 10 other volunteers.
• Co-Coordinators: Co-coordinators are the campus leaders for PHE. They help recruit other students, lead volunteer trainings and maintain the teaching schedule.

Cardinal Commitment Mentor: Nikita Rahman