WASHINGTON, D.C. — Airmen will take the first step of a five-year strategy to decrease interpersonal violence across the service in January when 1,500 Airman implementers attend one of 22 Green Dot prep sessions worldwide.
The Air Force contracted the nonprofit Green Dot organization to provide these violence prevention tools to the total Air Force over the next three years.
Mark Burton, 75th Air Base Wing, will oversee Hill Air Force Base’s program and said 25 implementers from Hill are scheduled to attend the Green Dot training at Nellis AFB, Nevada, Feb. 15-19.
“Green Dot is a comprehensive approach to sexual assault and domestic violence prevention,” Burton said. “It’s a social movement that harnesses the power of peer influence and individual bystander choice to create a lasting culture change to reduce power-based violence.”
Green Dot prepares organizations to implement a strategy of violence prevention that reduces power-based interpersonal violence, which includes not only sexual violence, but also domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, child abuse, elder abuse and bullying.
“Green Dot is the Air Force’s first step in arming Airmen for violence prevention using an evidence-based public health model,” said Dr. Andra Tharp, the Air Force’s highly qualified prevention expert. “Although that sounds complicated, really what it means is that we know Airmen are a vital part of the solution and we will use methods like this that have been subjected to rigorous scientific testing and were proven to be effective in reducing violence.”
Reflective of Green Dot’s wider scope, command-designated Airmen at each installation will conduct 50-minute sessions across the Air Force. Installation leadership will also have oversight of Green Dot through the Community Action Information Board and Integrated Delivery System, and track completion through the Advanced Distributed Learning System.
“It’s on all of us to take responsibility to prevent interpersonal violence in our Air Force,” said Air Force CAIB chair, Brig. Gen. Lenny Richoux. “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.”
The 1,500 Airman implementers will complete training by March 2016. They will return to their units to train peer leader Airmen at each base followed by training for all Airmen.
“Taking care of one another requires an integrated approach using the expertise of the medical community, sexual assault prevention and the Profession of Arms Center of Excellence,” Richoux said. “Old-school analog leadership from commanders and supervisors and between Airmen is the key to our success.”
