Green Dot rolls out across Team Dover

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman William Johnson
  • 436th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  Team Dover Airmen and civilians are starting to attend the Air Force's new training approach aimed at combating power-based interpersonal violence.

The Air Force has contracted with the non-profit Green Dot organization to provide violence prevention tools to the entire Air Force over the next three years. Green Dot has proven effective at reducing interpersonal violence, unwanted sex and sexual harassment in rigorous independent studies following its implementation. 

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.

Tech. Sgt. Carissa Goerss, 436th Maintenance Squadron aircraft structural maintenance craftsman and Green Dot coordinator for Dover AFB, said everyone will attend Green Dot training this year which will meet Airmen's obligations for Sexual Assault and Prevention Response training, but stressed that Green Dot is different from conventional SAPR training.

"Green Dot is different from SAPR because a lot of SAPR training in the past focused on a victim and a perpetrator and a lot of it focused on events that had actually happened," said Goerss. "You would go over scenarios that happened in real life and it was a lot of shock and awe and it turned peoples' stomachs and a lot of people left the training feeling uncomfortable. Green Dot is different because you don't put people in a perpetrator or a victim spot, everything is received through the lens of a bystander and that makes it palatable and comfortable for everybody."

Goerss said that Airmen will receive one of two types of Green Dot training; bystander and overview training. Approximately 12-15 percent of Airmen will attend a more in-depth bystander training which is full of exercises and activities while the rest of the base populace will receive overview training.  Goerss said Airmen are handpicked by section supervisors to attend bystander training.

"The point of getting a large population into the bystander class is because they are early adopters," said Goerss. "What we want to do is get the influential people from across the base, kind of those unspoken leaders of work centers, into that class so they can go back to their work centers and talk up the Green Dot program, so to speak."

Green Dot training is taught by certified Green Dot implementers who received specialized training on how to deliver the program's material. Tech. Sgt. Justin Hess, 436th Civil Engineering Squadron water and fuels maintenance supervisor and Green Dot implementer, attended a three-day training course at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, to become a Green Dot implementer and said the he favors Green Dot over SAPR training because it engages participants in face-to-face discussion amongst one another.

"The training is a movement in the right direction," said Hess. "If we teach people how to use the three Ds, which are delegate, distract and direct, to be able to step in as a bystander to stop a situation, maybe we'll get more people comfortable and willing to step into a situation and stop it."

Staff Sgt. Thomas Nuckols, 436th Medical Support Squadron diagnostic imaging technologist, recently attended bystander training and said Green Dot can be seen as a culture shift within the Air Force as it transitions away from traditional SAPR training.

"One big difference between the training in Green Dot versus SAPR is learning that everyone has a different perception of what is acceptable and what is not," said Nuckols. "I definitely think this is a step in the right direction."

While the old SAPR training was effective, this is a new approach to a difficult topic that will help change the conversation surrounding interpersonal violence from one of victims and perpetrators to a discussion of prevention and bystander intervention.