Last year around this time, the Green Dot program made its way onto the scene in the Air Force.

There was plenty of buzz about this new program the Air Force was adopting. I was often asked what this program was going to provide the Air Force had not already tried.

Many were skeptical and some went as far as to say this program will make its debut and then in a year or two the Air Force will move on to something else trending. However, we could not have predicted how well the Green Dot program would be received and embraced by our Airmen. As a matter of fact, according to Air Force survey results on Green Dot, 91 percent were hopeful that rates of interpersonal violence could be reduced in the Air Force after being trained in this program.

As a licensed therapist and a previous Sexual Assault Response Coordinator for so long, my field mainly looked at the problem of interpersonal violence from the response view. I am glad to say as a field we have made progress in the way we respond to the problem and we have done great work to try to ensure re-victimization doesn’t occur. The field has also made great efforts to ensure victims heal when they are affected by these crimes.

These changes didn’t occur in isolation. It took a lot of hard work by a lot of great people getting involved and doing their part to ensure victims are taken care of and treated fairly. We still have work to do but no doubt progress has been made.

We have in the past and continue to focus a lot of attention on risk reduction, both personal and environmental, to help individuals not become victims of interpersonal violence. Unfortunately the fall-out at times of this is victim-blaming. Even though reducing our risk to avoid dangerous situations is paramount, we also realize as a field that risk reduction doesn’t reduce the crime as much as wanted because of some of the dynamics involved in interpersonal violence.

Within the Air Force we also taught bystander intervention as a tool to use for intervening in high risk situations however, we didn’t expand the concept enough to make it practical for widespread use by our Airmen. The Green Dot program takes bystander intervention to the next level. The program presents options for intervening using the “3Ds,” aka direct, delegate, and distract, and how they work in spite of your personal, organizational or relationship barriers. 

The program also teaches Reactive Green Dots to stop something as soon as we see a warning sign interpersonal violence is possibly about to happen, and Proactive Green Dots to stop something before it even happens. These two concepts are setting norms of zero tolerance within our culture. Because of these aspects of the program, I believe the Green Dot program is here to stay.

For so long we wished no one suffered from sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking. Now we can do more. We have the power to stop it, one small action at a time. Remember, no one has to do everything, but everyone has to do something.

In my view, the primary prevention concepts used in the Green Dot program have the opportunity to become some of the biggest grassroots movements in our foreseeable future in the way we go after the problem of interpersonal violence. With the Green Dot program applying primary prevention concepts, we can take the power back and create the culture we want in the Air Force. We have the power to make perpetrators ineffective in their efforts to commit these crimes. 

In 2017, look for our expanded application of primary prevention to include our comprehensive primary prevention strategy for Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi. The primary prevention program will continue to grow and evolve. Don’t be left behind, I urge you to join the movement.  Practice Green Dot, share the concept with others, keep displaying those Green Dot car magnets, posting support on social media, and talking about it in your work center.

Before you know it, cultural change will happen. Just the way social media made its way onto the scene, one small action at a time. This generation can and will do it, if not you, then who? As Benjamin Franklin said “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”