SOAR Peer Coaching Program offers peer-to-peer support to nursing students
To assist WVU School of Nursing students with the transition into the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program, the SOAR Peer Coaching Program aims to cultivate a sense of belonging and to build resiliency, self-compassion and stress reduction skills.
The SOAR (Success, Outreach, And Resilience) Peer Coaching Program builds upon the popularity of the My Success program, which is offered to students in the BS/BA to BSN (Fast Track) program.
“This is not so much for academic success as it is for personal success,” said Dr. Tina Antill Keener, Director of the BSN Program. “For example, our peer coaches can help new students understand how to reframe their support system or how to find time to study.”
Tonya Thompson, Fast Track Coordinator, created the foundation of the program and Keener worked with her to incorporate resilience and self-compassion components. The program has been especially beneficial for Fast Track students, who are nontraditional and oftentimes face multiple challenges, including balancing school, work and family responsibilities.
“Our Fast Track students have loved it and expanding it to our traditional undergraduate programs is something I’ve wanted to do for the last several years,” Keener said.
SOAR is now being offered to BSN students at the Morgantown, Beckley and Keyser campus locations.
“We’ve had such positive responses from Fast Track students who’ve been in the program and then became coaches,” Keener said. “They all said this needs to be done for all students because it was so helpful to them.”
Peer coaches were recruited during the summer and are ready to assist for the fall semester. A meet and greet was hosted the first day of classes, and coaches met their mentees before NSG 211. These teams, comprised of one coach and three mentees, will form a peer group. Coaches will establish lines of communication, such a text or social media group, or they can meet in person. During more stressful times, such as midterms or finals, groups are encouraged to host a face-to-face meetup.
Traditional undergraduate nursing students entering the program are automatically signed up for the program and will be assigned a peer coach. Students interested in peer coaching should contact Dr. Keener at tantill@hsc.wvu.edu to learn more.
-WVU-
CONTACT: Wendy Holdren
Director of Communications and Marketing
WVU School of Nursing
304-581-1772; wendy.holdren@hsc.wvu.edu