Peer-Chat: Vorläufige Beurteilung des Online-Angebots.

This paper describes the experience of a peer chat service for young people that was launched in 2019 in Italian-speaking Switzerland and is still ongoing. It is a type of counselling where young people help other young people during a specific time. The peer chats are avatar-based, so this type of counselling is confidential, digital and written. In this preliminary evaluation, we wanted to take into account both the experiences of those who have used this service and the characteristics of the peer chats. The results show that satisfaction with the service and certain dimensions of life skills assessment such as self-knowledge, problem solving, empathy and many others were good. The conclusions explore both the limitations and the possibilities of this new way of providing digital support to young people by young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]