The Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) was originally developed at UCLA by Dr. Elizabeth Laugeson, Founder and Director of the UCLA PEERS Clinic, and Dr. Fred Frankel in 2005 and has expanded to locations across the United States and the world. PEERS is a manualized, social skills training intervention for youth with social challenges.

There are four options for getting training in PEERS. (1) The PEERS Certified Training Seminar last two days and is hosted at UCLA.  It is designed specifically for mental health professionals and educators interested in learning and/or implementing the PEERS intervention into their clinical practice. (2) PEERS provides off-site training seminars, presentations or talks for a variety of agencies based on their specific needs.  These may range from 1-4 days, with varying costs. (3) The PEERS Certified School-based Training for Educators is designed exclusively for teachers, school psychologists, counselors, speech and language pathologists, administrators, and school-based professionals who are interested in learning to implement The PEERS Curriculum for School-based Professionals. Attendees will obtain 24 hours of training over 3 days and this training also takes place at UCLA. And (4) PEERS provides off-site School-based training seminars, presentations or talks for a variety of agencies based on their specific needs.  These may range from 1-4 days, with varying costs.

The PEERS program naturally lends itself to sex ed instruction.  For example, the adolescent program focuses on

• How to use appropriate conversational skills
• How to find common interests by trading information
• How to appropriately use humor
• How to enter and exit conversations between peers
• How to be a good host during get-togethers
• How to make phone calls to friends
• How to choose appropriate friends
• How to be a good sport
• How to handle arguments and disagreements
• How to change a bad reputation
• How to handle rejection, teasing, and bullying
• How to handle rumors and gossip

This video features a program that uses PEERS for sex ed