Vol. 15, No. 4, Spring 2002

Using Life’s Lessons to Mend

Rose Soza War Soldier

My name is Rose Soza War Soldier. I am a Mountain Maidu and Cahuilla woman currently attending the University of California, Davis, where I am a senior. Of the many activities available to me, I have found the opportunity to help fellow students to be particularly rewarding. When I was a sophomore, I became part of the multicultural Peer Advising Counselor (PAC) staff on campus, which works under the auspices of the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) Information Office. Although our target clientele is EOP students, who are historically, educationally, economically, or physically challenged, our services are available to the entire campus.

Peer counseling is a vital component of student health systems on high school and college campuses throughout the United States. Peer counseling teams in schools are a great benefit to the mental health of young people. These teams also help institutions as a whole by keeping professional counselors and caregivers aware of current issues and potential threats to student health. As a peer counselor I work with a diverse group of students from various ethnic, cultural, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds. The diversity of our PAC team has been a source of strength because of the variety of issues we encounter. Issues range from money management and problems with financial aid to more personal issues such as roommate conflict, culture shock, "coming out," questioning one’s ability to succeed in school, experiencing death or illness in the family, sexual assault, alcohol and drug-related problems, and suicide. While we do help students with general academic problems, we also counsel around cross-cultural issues surrounding gender, sexuality, and race relations.

Our staff receives more than eighty hours of training and is prepared to handle personal, social, and academic problems. New staff members shadow the experienced peer counselors during the initial training. The training includes basic counseling techniques, cross-cultural training, academic advising, and resource training. One of the most important tools is learning how to ask open-ended rather than closed-ended questions. A line of questioning determines if a conversation will continue, so to help encourage someone to share more information, you would ask a question that requires more than a "yes" or "no" answer. We also work on techniques that help us reflect back or paraphrase a person’s statements to them so they can truly hear what they are saying. Perhaps the most important skill that I learned was active listening; I had to re-learn to listen and not just hear people. Other skills, such as attentive body language and effective vocal style, I learned from constant practice. Every skill, however, should be examined from a cultural perspective. For example, direct eye contact is considered to be a good counseling aid in the general population, but for many Indian students, direct eye contact may be interpreted as a sign of disrespect.

I strongly believe that students feel comfortable approaching us because we are students and will not issue any negative judgment about their situations. Our office is readily accessible every day, and, as peers, when offering any form of referral, we have a unique student perspective of our school environment and resources. In addition, for some students, there appears to be a negative stigma attached to professional counseling and it may seem better to many students to visit a peer counselor instead of a psychologist.

With the experiences and lessons I’ve learned while at the university, I am able to understand various life experiences of a college student. That is not to say that professionals are unable to understand a college student and our experiences, but I have prevailed over many of the issues relatively recently. I have a strong sense of empathy and understanding, plus possible solutions to resolve an issue. I feel, therefore, that peer counseling is one of the best forms of counseling available to students.

All of our services are confidential, meaning that we never publicly identify another student as one of our clients. We may share the issue that they experienced for team training purposes, but we will never share any identity markers about the person. The only exception to this rule is if we feel that the person may do harm to him or herself or harm another person. In this case, there is a legal requirement to notify one of our professional psychologists. For instance, if we counsel someone who has said that they are suicidal, we must share this information with professional psychologists who will then intervene to help the person in this crisis. During the academic year, our staff has a specific psychologist assigned to our PAC team. This person assists us with our individual cases if the issue is out of our training scope, and serves as a mentor and support system for us as do the student co-coordinators for the team.

As peer counselors, we are trained and learn from professional psychologists and psychiatrists from our counseling center. In turn, they learn from us how to approach students more effectively. However, being a counselor is a work in progress because there is always room for improvement. We train continually throughout the year and revisit issues that may appear as persistent problems in the student population, such as eating disorders or substance abuse.

Being Indian affected my decision to become a PAC because I felt that there was a lack of Indian student support in the holistic approach of personal, academic, and social counseling. By working on a multicultural staff, I have been able to help educate the team about the uniqueness of Indian culture and create higher cultural and social awareness of the issues that our community faces. Staff members from other ethnic backgrounds have taught me about other cultures given me stronger convictions to cherish cultural diversity. I am also better able to recognize the cultural similarities that we share.

I think that Indian people have culturally based talents—such as humor—that aid effective counseling. Humor is a great way to release tension, and it can help put a crisis in perspective. As Indian people we don’t realize how the many issues we deal with and the advice we offer within our community are actually an informal form of counseling. Also, our storytelling traditions have prepared us to listen closely to people and to recognize or "hear" that which is unsaid.

I would encourage any student who is interested in the physical or mental health professions, has a strong passion to assist students, or is genuinely interested in affecting people to try to find a peer counseling program that interests them. At my school alone we have peer counselors in academics, sexuality, competitive athletics, and crisis counseling.

Being a peer counselor has helped me become a better person. As the job continues throughout the academic year, I have also learned about balancing my schedule between work, school, and extracurricular activities. As the only Indian person on staff, I wanted to learn more about my people’s history. This fueled my interest in attending graduate school and receiving my Ph.D. in history with an emphasis in California Indian history. My ultimate career goal is to be a historian or a lawyer specializing in Indian law. Although my goals are not related to professional counseling, they are still related to advocating on behalf of my people and I will apply many of the skills that I learned as a peer counselor to my job.

Rose Soza War Soldier (Mountain Maidu/Cahuilla) is a senior at University of California, Davis, majoring in history with a double minor in social and ethnic relations and political science. She has served as a peer counselor for two year; next year she will serve as a co-coordinator for the staff.