Green Dot program aims to curb violence

  • Published
  • By Nick DeCicco
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  The Air Force is taking a fresh approach to decreasing interpersonal violence in 2016.

A new program named Green Dot will roll out across the year, beginning with training which recently took place for 14 "implementers" at Travis Air Force Base, California.

The goal of the training is to use tools from the nonprofit Green Dot organization to prevent incidents of power-based personal violence, including sexual assault, domestic abuse, dating violence, stalking, child abuse, elder abuse, bullying and more.

The approach was tried at colleges and tailored for use with the military, said Emily Halley, Community Action Information Board community support coordinator at Travis.

"This approach has been researched and has proven to be the best for fighting off interpersonal violence," she said.

Halley said the next task of the 14 implementers is to spread their knowledge to the rest of the base. They will inform "coordinators," who will set up training for the base. The knowledge will continue to roll out at varying levels, from the four-hour training for influencers to the 50-minute training most Airmen will receive.

The goal is to complete training across the base by the end of the calendar year.

"It's in its infancy," said Halley, who was a full-time Sexual Assault Prevention and Response advocate before coming to Travis. "Some of the bases have already begun doing it, but there really hasn't been any feedback yet as far as whether ... it seems to be helping."

Part of the training is encouraging Airmen and the military community to take a more active role in assault prevention.

"It's on all of us to take responsibility to prevent interpersonal violence in our Air Force," said Brig. Gen. Lenny Richoux, CAIB chair, in a statement. "There are more good Airmen out there who want to take care of their wingman than there are predators seeking to inflict acts of violence inside our family and I have confidence our Airmen won't let me or each other stand alone against this criminal behavior."

Halley said while it's important for the base community to recognize that sexual assault prevention is a component of Green Dot, it does not encompass all of the incidents of interpersonal violence.

"I think the misconception is it is so sexual-assault based, from what we understand," Halley said. "It includes much more than that."

Although Green Dot is not SAPR training, it does count toward the annual SAPR training requirement, Halley said.

The training follows an 11 percent increase in sexual assault reports involving service members during fiscal year 2014, according to the Defense Department's SAPR office. The number of sexual assaults in the Air Force increased 17 percent in fiscal year 2014, to 1,350 from 1,149. Statistical data for fiscal year 2015 is not yet available.

For more information, visit sapr.mil http://sapr.mil . For more information on the Green Dot organization, visit livethegreendot.com http://livethegreendot.com.