Introduction: College counseling centers are beginning to implement scalable self-help programs for mental health to help address high levels of student need. To improve low rates of engagement and program completion, online programs can be supplemented with coaching. Most studies on this type of coaching have implemented professional therapists or graduate students as coaches, but employing undergraduate volunteers instead could be a more scalable and cost-effective approach. This could also be more acceptable to students, reduce stigma, and normalize help seeking. The present study sought to examine the feasibility and acceptability of an efficacious, novel peer-support coaching model designed to improve adherence to an online self-help program based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Methods: All participants (N = 152) and peer-support coaches (N = 12) were undergraduate students attending the same university. Students signing up for the free program, called ACT Guide, were invited to join our study. Additional recruitment methods included SONA, flyers, and class announcements. Participants were instructed to use the program over the next 10 weeks and were randomly assigned to receive weekly peer coaching through either phone calls or text messaging. Results: A total of 80% of phone calls and 81% of text message exchanges met criteria for fidelity to the coaching protocol, with fidelity being significantly greater for the phone modality (p = .013). One third of students signing up for ACT Guide agreed to enroll in our study, indicating interest in the service. A total of 55% of participants who received phone coaching and 36% who received text coaching completed 6 or more coaching sessions. Response means for satisfaction items generally fell within the range of 3 “slightly disagree” and 4 “slightly agree,” with relatively large spread (SDs ranging from 1.3 to 1.7), suggesting participants’ perceptions of coaching widely varied. Participants assigned to the text condition were significantly more likely than the phone condition to agree that ACT Guide would have been just as helpful without a coach (p = .036) and to prefer help from a mental health professional instead (p = .006). Conclusions: Our results support the feasibility of using peer-support coaching with a college student population, indicated by successful coach recruitment and their ability to adhere to the coaching protocol. There was a relatively high level of interest in the service. However, it was only acceptable to a subset of students, with satisfaction being higher for the phone modality. This was potentially due to differences in level of need and individual preferences. Adherence to coaching was somewhat poor, although still significantly improved adherence to ACT Guide as reported in a separate publication. Limitations: While we attempted to collect data under naturalistic conditions, it is important to acknowledge that the data was still collected within a research context. This added non-naturalistic factors such as extra contact time and notifications, compensation, and the novelty of participating in a research study. It is unknown whether the number of coaching sign-ups or adherence to coaching would differ in a typical service setting. -- Korena "Kory" Klimczak Doctoral Student USU ACT Research Group<https://www.utahact.com/> Clinical and Counseling Psychology Utah State University (561) 573 9258 WARNING: CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE- The information enclosed with this transmission may contain privileged and confidential information. It is intended solely for the individual(s) indicated. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any review, disclosure, copying, distribution, or the taking of any other action relevant to the contents of this transmission are strictly prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please contact the sender by reply email immediately and destroy all copies of the original message.