Meet Nikki: A Peer Education Volunteer at Fast Forward

Nikki began volunteering with Fast Forward in September 2014 as a peer educator. Here she is interviewed by Communications Officer at Fast Forward, Simon Atkins.

 

Hi Nikki. How are you feeling?

Fine. I’ve got a blocked nose.

Great. How did you hear about Fast Forward?

It was through Google. You type in ‘drugs and alcohol information’ and you guys come up. I was searching for it because that’s what was missing from my CV. I’d already worked with children and vulnerable adults, and domestic abuse, so the one of the things I hadn’t worked with was drugs and alcohol.

What was our Volunteer Officer like?

Mhairi was helpful. She was nice. She sent me an application form, and someone dropped out of the Boroughmuir Project so I got the role volunteering there. First I got trained up in peer education, which was fun.

 

Can you tell us about the Boroughmuir Project?

It’s a peer education project that runs from September to Christmas, and me and Jay taught the S6’s about how to deliver the survival game and worked with them to pass on information to S1’s and S2’s about drugs, alcohol, bullying, internet safety and who to go to if they have issues.

How much of your time does it take up?

Not that much time… 2 hours every Tuesday for actual peer ed at Boroughmuir, and an extra hour every week or two to come in and plan lessons with Jay.

 

I saw you were gluing stuff. What’s with all the diamonds?

It’s a diamond game. It’ll be a class activity and all the kids will see all the diamonds pinned up in front of the class, and they have to decide the most important thing to do on Fresher’s Week at uni.

So this is a different group than the peer education group?

Yes.

Right. Then what?

So there’s a different task written on each of the diamonds, like matriculating for uni, registering with a doctor, joining a sports club, and they have to arrange them in the shape of a diamond in terms of importance.

I see one of your activities includes the phrase “Minesweeping in a pub/club”. Is that a thing?

Nikki: It’s not a thing, but Jay seems to think it is.

Jay: It’s what the kids do abroad.

Nikki: It’s when you go into a club and people have left their drinks unattended, and you go around drinking other people’s drinks. Is that right?

Jay: Yeah.

So what is that minesweeping activity thing?

The risk ladder. There are different risks and the kids have to put them in order to what the most risky is to the least risky.

What do you think the least risky thing is?

Nikki: Probably ‘Reinventing your image in freshers week’.

Jay: The whole point of the activity is drawing the kids attention to how they assess risk. There’s no right and wrong answers, everything has risks attached to it.

Nikki: Yeah.

Has it been useful for your CV?

Yes. I’ve yet to write it up, but yes, it has been useful. It was even better than I thought it was going to be before I started. I got a lot more out of it than I thought I would as well.

Like what?

Knowledge. And through Jay being the best cheerleader ever, confidence in my abilities. I never thought I’d be able to lead a session or develop a session… We’ll wait until the session I’m delivering on Monday and see how it goes!

Thanks for hanging out with us. Is there anything you’d like to add?

No. Bye!

 

If you’d like to find out about volunteering as a peer educator, check our SPEN pages.