PUSD representatives will present at the Norcal Safe and Healthy Schools Conference on how to implement positive peer pressure and start leadership programs on Nov. 13.

The conference will be held on the UC Berkeley campus, with attendance and presentations from 18 other school districts in northern California.

Wellness Center director Ting Hsu Engelman selected five students to speak at the conference about the leadership programs they are involved with, including Peer Mediators, Peer Advisors, Youth Educators and Safe School Ambassadors.

“There is peer pressure that teenagers experience all the time, and generally peer pressure is negative,” Hsu Engelman said. “Our hope is that if we use proper leadership techniques, we can direct and assist our own students to be good influences, for either younger students or their own peers.”

This will be the third year Hsu Engelman and student representatives have attended the conference. In 2012, they attended and presented at the Teens Tackle Tobacco High School Conference, which resulted in positive feedback and encouragement to attend the Safe and Healthy Schools Conference the next year.

When Hsu Engelman first applied to the Safe and Healthy Schools Conference in 2013, she requested to present on how to initiate leadership programs. The conference director, however, wanted to hear from the perspective of students, Hsu Engelman said.

For this year’s conference, Hsu Engelman created her own catchphrase of “positive peer pressure” to describe PUSD’s presentation topic.

“Positive peer pressure is energy derived from these leadership groups that are trying to work toward a cause,” Hsu Engelman said. “They are trying to influence more than one student and touch many lives.”

Hsu Engelman wants to convey how students can positively impact the school climate and will also discuss how and why to start a wellness center.

“In order for a student to have a well balanced experience in school, there needs to be a quality instructional program as well as a healthy school environment, which is the Wellness Center’s primary focus.” Hsu Engelman said.

After Hsu Engelman presents, the five student representatives will speak — seniors Tyler Ellis, Nate Peden, Emilia Rivera and Lizzie Bjork, in addition to eighth grader Julia Pappas were chosen to represent their respective programs. They will discuss personal experiences and how the program has affected the community and them specifically.

The student representatives definitely want audience participation, so they will do demonstrations to give the audience an example of what the leadership groups do when they are in action, Ellis said.

Ellis and Bjork will inform their audience about the objectives of the Peer Mediation program, which is centered around middle school students that are trained by high schoolers.

“Although the main goal is to come to a solution in a conflict, we are all part of conflicts daily and the simple tools you learn can not only help in the peer mediation process, but also in real life,” Ellis said.

It is much more effective having youth teach other youth, even though seeing that and trusting students with such heavy material is hard at first, Ellis said.

“You go about your day with adults always teaching you,” Ellis said. “Having peers teach each other brings this refreshing tone to learning about very important skill sets.”

Along with Ellis, Pappas will attend the conference to represent the Safe School Ambassador program.

“The message I want to get across is that teachers cannot fix all the problems even though a lot of students think that they do,” Pappas said.

Programs like Safe School Ambassadors are very beneficial because they provide positive peer pressure in environments outside of school, Pappas said.

During the conference, PUSD representatives get ideas from other schools. For example, Safe School Ambassadors was something from other schools at the conference, so teachers looked into it and started it at PMS.

“Essentially, we are trying to share approaches and ideas that we have done at PUSD with other districts so that we can help others that may be facing similar challenges as ours,” Hsu Engelman said.