SMU’s peer support programme started in 2004. Its peer helpers manage a campus space called Cosy Haven, where students can drop in and de-stress in a massage chair, play video games or chat with a peer helper. “Because (peer helpers) are fellow students, they go through the same academic stressors … the same difficulties in the classroom, in their co-curricular activities and so forth,” said SMU Dean of Students and Professor of Sociology (Practice) Paulin Tay Straughan.