Become a Sentinel

Encouraging the sharing of common experiences and mutual support is one of the Nightline's core missions, allowing each student to get involved with their peers. We tell you more about our flagship peer support project here.

What is peer support?

Peer support can be defined as support provided by and for people with similar conditions, problems or experiences. It is based on the belief that people who have faced and overcome adversity can offer support, encouragement and hope to others facing similar situations.

Source : Peer support for student mental health, Student Minds (2014)

The birth of formal peer support

Informal peer support has always existed, and it is a natural part of our everyday personal relationships. The first instance of a structured form of peer support was the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous in the United States in 1935. Since its inception, the phenomenon has grown so much in the United States that there are twice as many peer support programmes dedicated to mental disorders as there are professional medical-psychiatric facilities! We tell you more about our flagship peer support project here: the Student Sentinel Programme.

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Student Sentinel Programme

Identify and refer peers in distress

In collaboration with the Groupement d'Etudes et de Prévention du Suicide (GEPS), Nightline has set up a programme for students who are caregivers in their student community and who wish to acquire skills in identifying and referring their peers in distress. Our goal is to make students actors of prevention in their communities on a daily basis. In this way, the Student Sentinels programme is integrated into the community-based approach that is a central lever at Nightline to improve student mental health.

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What are the advantages?

For the student community, peer support:

Enables us to reach those who are not used to seek help from professionals and to link them to these structures

Reduces psychological distress, exhaustion, suicidal thoughts as well as the feeling of loneliness which is a key factor for psychological angst among students

Enables us to normalise talking about mental health between peers

🧑‍🎓You're a student and you'd like to find out more?

Are you interested in mental health issues and want to support your peers? Become a Sentinel and learn how to talk about mental health, what to do, and where to find appropriate resources. We tell you all about this training from the national suicide prevention programme here.

Find out more (in French)