Scott Airmen participate in initial Green Dot training

by Airman Daniel Garcia
375th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs

1/28/2016 - SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- To combat negative behaviors and create an environment that prevents violent acts from occurring, several personnel at Scott AFB received Green Dot violence training in January, which will continue throughout the year.

Green Dot is a new program aimed at preventing power-based violence among Air Force personnel. The program focuses on "Red Dots," a decision someone makes to assault or abuse someone else, and "Green Dots," a decision someone makes to react or prevent that from happening. The emphasis of the program is less about reporting crimes when they happen and more about creating a climate where the situations wouldn't happen in the first place.

Senior Master Sgt. Casy Boomershine, a Green Dot coordinator within Air Mobility Command, said everybody has the ability to intervene in a comfortable way. This program creates a climate where a "Red Dot" can't happen because everyone is looking out for each other.

"The actions a person can take can be something very small," she said. "It is a way for everyone to find out how to intervene while still in their personal comfort zone to keep our Wingmen safe."

According to 2nd Lt. Allison Rayome, a Green Dot coordinator within the 375th Air Mobility Wing, this training is similar to bystander intervention training, however the difference with Green Dot is it provides strategies to create a safer environment.

The Green Dot program is an Air Force-wide program, and everyone from officers to civilian personnel will receive Green Dot training which will also serve as the violence prevention training for the year. There are three levels of training: Leadership, Influencer, and General Overview.

The leadership training is targeted to those in key leadership positions such as group commanders and above, directors, and command chiefs.

The influencer training is a more in-depth training about understanding the concept and methodology behind it. Boomershine said people selected for this training will leverage their social standing within their units to inspire others to internalize the message behind the program.

"When people, who have social capital, adopt a new way of thinking, it helps to spread it within the entire population," Boomershine said.

The rest of the base will receive a 60-minute overview brief, which touches on all key points, so they can go back to their units and promote discussion.

Rayome said it's important to realize there may be people who have been affected in some way by violence, and that this training is a great way to help.

"One of the biggest things we all learned is that there wasn't a single person in the room during the training who wasn't personally affected, or knew someone who has been affected by interpersonal violence," said Rayome.

"So it's easy to look at the stats, it's easy to see when we get our [sexual assault prevention] training how many reports there are, but that's just a number. To some people, that number is a person they know and is their whole world. If we don't fix this in our Air Force culture, it's not going to change. It gave me hope, going through the training, that we actually can make a difference and those numbers are going to go down, if we allow them to internalize the message."