Green Dot to roll out across the Air Force

  • Published
  • By Air Force Reserve Command
ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. --  In December, the Air Force announced the Green Dot training program as the first step of a five-year strategy to decrease interpersonal violence across the service.

"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. "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."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the government's lead agency for preventing interpersonal violence, has studied multiple violence prevention programs and found Green Dot to be successful in lowering violence. In studies at the University of Kentucky, in self-reported surveys following implementation of Green Dot training, freshman students reported decreases in perpetrating and experiencing interpersonal violence, unwanted sex, sexual harassment, stalking and psychological dating violence. These decreases ranged from 12 to 36 percent and all were found to be statistically significant.

Green Dot is also expected to decrease the training burden on most Airmen and is the first step in the possible consolidation of other annual training requirements. Because Green Dot is broader than sexual assault, the Air Force is exploring possibilities to strategically consolidate other training requirements based on interpersonal violence. The majority of Airmen will receive only 50 minutes of Green Dot training in FY16, and SAPR training will instead be met through commander engagements rather than formal training sessions.

The 1,500 Green Dot implementers are expected to complete their training by March 2015.

They will return to their units to train peer leader Airmen at each base followed by training for all Airmen. 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.

The Air Force contracted the non-profit Green Dot organization to provide violence prevention tools and training to the total Air Force over the next three years.