Peer mentors help build healthy school communities
Program teaches social- emotional learning, leadership skills
Elijah Romero knew what it was like to be the quiet kid in school.
“I didn’t really want to talk or want to engage in classes,” Elijah, a senior at Denver North High School, said.
When he took an elective class from the YESS Institute at school, though, he realized he could open up to his fellow students.
“( The class) starts a small community in your class, and I started feeling more comfortable and realized not everyone is that bad,” Elijah said. “When I wasn’t really talking to people; I wasn’t confident in anything. Me ( becoming confident) through this class made me want to help other kids here have enough confidence in themselves.”
Elijah is now one of five peer mentor- leaders at North High School with the YESS Institute, an organization founded in 2001 to help Denver- area students build social- emotional learning and leadership skills to be productive and inclusive members of their communities.
North High School is just one of nearly a dozen public schools between Denver and Adams counties that YESS serves, but Vince Trujillo, the nonprofit’s director of programs, said the organization’s
leaders hope to be able to get more funding soon to move into even more schools in the area.
YESS mentors and mentorleaders such as Elijah, students a step above mentors who get paid part- time for their work, are core foundations to the success of YESS in Denver- area schools, Trujillo said.
In YESS classrooms, school program managers facilitate the social- emotional learning with curriculum, Trujillo said, but it’s the mentors who build the spaces where their peers can feel safe and welcome.
“We have lessons tied to skills
like self- awareness, life management, healthy relationships or other things like that,” Trujillo said. “Two days per week we do lessons, but then the rest is the mentors checking ( other students’) grades, helping with schoolwork.”
Another aspect of YESS’ mission is to specifically serve students from marginalized communities in historically underserved areas, so the mentorleaders at North are helping further both aspects of the YESS classroom mission.
“Growing up on the north side, I know there are a lot of kids who are less fortunate,” Frankie Dardano, another senior mentor- leader at North, said. “Maybe they don’t have support at home, so being in a class like YESS gives you resources like for mental health or just someone to talk to. It’s not always learning; it’s also a support system.”
On the learning side of YESS, Michael Maestas, who was a YESS student last year as a freshman before becoming a sophomore mentor- leader this
year, said responsible decisionmaking has been the most impactful social- emotional learning skill he’s acquired in the YESS classroom.
Both normal YESS students and mentors and mentor- leaders like him can benefit from those skills, he said.
“Now as a mentor- lead, people look up to me on how to stay on track,” Michael said. “I have to stay focused not just for myself, but for the others around me, too.”
Ricky Duarte, a junior mentorleader, knows how it feels to not have help, so the collective effort to raise each other up through YESS helps him focus on everyone’s success.
“Being able to do things not just for myself but for the classrooms, it helps us not fall behind,” he said. “Helping others out makes you feel a little better about school.”
Having mentors be students also builds camaraderie with the other students being mentored, said Je’nessa Cruz, senior mentor- leader at North, and is key to YESS students’ success in the program.
When everyone around has the same experiences and lives in the same ZIP code, the YESS classroom helps students uplift each other, she said.
“We’re all living our first lives; nobody knows how to do it,” Je’nessa said. “When you’re climbing the stairs and there are others around climbing with you, you feel successful.”