Peer Health Educators

A Peer Health Educator (PHE) is an undergraduate student volunteer on the Danforth Campus selected to represent the Habif Health and Wellness Center in health promotion/harm reduction efforts on campus for one year.

What is a PHE?

• An undergraduate student volunteer dedicated to health promotion and wellness at WashU
• Receives training and supervision from Habif Health and Wellness Center staff
• Works on outreach, programming and communications
• Specializes in one of these three subgroups:
  • Alcohol and other drugs
  • Mental Health
  • Sexual Health

Committed to creating a healthier WashU, PHEs plan and implement popular programs and contribute to health promotion communications including CampusWell and Habif’s Instagram.

PHEs work in these subgroups: alcohol/other drugs (AOD), mental health, and sexual health. A PHE may serve on one subgroup only. Habif staff members and graduate students from the Brown School of Social Work and Public Health train PHEs and supervise the subgroups.

Signature PHE programs include:

• AOD:  risk reduction outreach before large events such as WILD and Mardi Gras, safer substance use trainings, Know Your Product cannabis series, Weeding out Myths and Misconceptions, Cannabis Trivia, and promotion of the WashU Recovery Group and safer drug disposal options
• Mental Health:  Pause, Green Bandana, Mindful Mondays, Reflect and Reset, Gratitude Week, Impostor Syndrome panels, and Suicide Prevention training promotion
• Sexual Health:  Sexual Health trivia events, “Sex in the Dark” programs, Thanks Birth Control Day, and promotion of STI screening options and free resources including safer sex supplies, sustainable menstruation supplies, emergency contraception, and pregnancy tests