AFSC News

Green Dot to roll out across Air Force

  • Published
  • By Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs
WASHINGTON (AFNS) --  Airmen will take the first step of a five-year strategy to decrease interpersonal violence across the service from January through March when 1,500 Airman implementers attend one of 22 Green Dot prep sessions worldwide.

Tinker Air Force Base will host one of the regional Green Dot Trainings from March 1-4. Guests for the training will also include Altus AFB, Okla.; Barksdale AFB, La.; Fort Smith Air National Guard Station, Ark.; Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, Texas; McConnell AFB, Kan.; Sheppard AFB, Texas; Tulsa Air National Guard Base, Okla.; Vance AFB, Okla.; and Will Rogers Air National Guard Base, Okla. Commanders and directors have submitted potential implementers to the SAPR Office. Twenty-five implementers will be interviewed and selected by the SAPR staff.  These implementers will be responsible for training the entire base population.

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.

"As a service, our number one priority has and will continue to be response. However, in order to stop violence before it occurs we must dedicate time to prevention," said Chief Master Sgt. Melanie Noel, the Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response senior enlisted adviser. "Helping our Airmen understand what they can do to prevent violence and how they can do it is the first step."

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 60 50-minute long 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."

"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," General Richoux said. "Old-school analog leadership from commanders and supervisors and between Airmen is the key to our success."

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