HARNESSING THE POWER OF PEER COUNSELOR STRATEGIES FOR SUPPORTING STUDENT EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING

Abstract

Teenage years are a transitional period from childhood to adulthood, where adolescentsexperience social roles, achieve emotional independence, learn to socialize, and become responsible individuals. This period is not easy, considering that it is a time of transition and self-discovery, where teenagers are constantly confronted with a social environment that requires guidance and genuine social support. Social support, especially from peers, plays an important role during adolescence.

In essence, this is already the responsibility of Guidance and Counseling teachers in the personal-social field. The implementation of guidance and counseling services is there sponsibility of Guidance and Counseling teachers (BK teachers) in schools. However, the services provided are not effective enough due to the limited number of BK teachers and limitedopportunities to provide services to all students. This has prompted guidance and counseling teachers to provide additional programs and services in the form of peer counselors, with the hope that they can assist teenagers with the problems they face. Peer counseling has become an important and inseparable part of schools due to the dynamics of education and complex issues among students. The need for peer counselors cannot be ignored because, in reality, teenage issues are often communicated to their peers. The implementation of peer counseling is believed to overcome the weaknesses of the counseling service system in schools, and in this case, the roleof peer counselors can help students overcome and improve their emotional well-being. Of course, there are concerns about peer counseling. The main concern is the possibility of deviations or even malpractice in the process. 

This is understandable because peer counselors in peer counseling are not trained individuals who have completed higher education like BK teachers. The lack of preparation and training for peer counselors, combined with the fact that counseling should not be done casually, raises pessimistic questions about whether peers can fulfill the true role and function of a counselor. To reduce concerns about malpractice in peer counseling, not all problems can be entrusted to peer counselors. In this case, severe problems that are acute and involve deep emotional and behavioral aspects should still be handled by BKteachers. To achieve the desired goals and reduce concerns about malpractice, Guidance and Counseling teachers also provide training every week, and peercounselors also collaborate withclass administrators to monitor the issues of each class. Peer counselors assist students with their problems through various means, such as personal confessions, anonymous confessions through suggestion boxes, and providing daily motivation through their own Instagram accounts.

This research aims to implement peer counseling as one of the strategies to support students' emotional well-being. Based on these factors, this research is conducted using interview and observation methods as data sources, as well as supporting data from journals and articles indexed in SINTA (Science and Technology Index), which will be described in detail using a qualitative approach. The overall objective of this research is to describe students' emotional intelligence, describe the acceptance of peer counselors, and examine the significance of the strategy of students' emotional well-being with the acceptance of peer counselors. The research approach used is quantitative with a descriptive correlational design. The research population consists of 354 high school student.