Green Dot Safety Program is a violence prevention safety program for everyone. Through training and resources, Green Dot empowers bystanders to become active members and help reduce the impact of violence within a given community.
It is designed to help encourage bystanders to make a choice and take action that does something to help prevent violence from happening on campus and in the community.
What is Green Dot?
Green dots are a single moment in time that helps end perpetration and support victims of violence. Green dots help increase community and campus safety for everyone ending the perpetration of violence.
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Asking if someone is okay if you feel or see something concerning.
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Offering to call SafeWalk or to be a safe ride home
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Letting restaurant staff, bar staff or campus staff know that something might be high-risk
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Causing a distraction to diffuse the situation
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Telling someone to “back-off"
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Checking in with friends who are acting differently after starting a new relationship
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Posting on social media about violence prevention
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Encouraging others to attend a Green Dot overview speech or training
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Placing a Green Dot logo in your email signature with a statement like "Ask me about Green Dot!" to help spread the word
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Using one of our Green Dot Zoom backgrounds in virtual meetings to spark conversation
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Share our downloadable content to engage others
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Shaming, humiliating or threatening an intimate partner
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Stalking, following someone or repeatedly calling a person after they have made it clear that they do not want a relationship of any kind
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Any act that is an assertion of power, control and/or intimidation with the intent to harm another in any way
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Using drugs or alcohol as a weapon to sexually assault another person
The Social-Ecological Model
NIC has received a grant through the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s Rape Prevention Education (RPE) Office to implement and evaluate violence prevention and awareness programs. Our work with RPE, and as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), is based on the Social-Ecological Model.
The ultimate goal is to stop violence before it begins. Prevention requires understanding the factors that influence violence. CDC uses a four-level social-ecological model to better understand violence and the effect of potential prevention strategies. This model considers the complex interplay between individual, relationship, community and societal factors. It allows us to understand the range of factors that put people at risk for violence or protect them from experiencing or perpetrating violence. The overlapping rings in the model illustrate how factors at one level influence factors at another level.
Besides helping to clarifying these factors, the model also suggests that in order to prevent violence, it is necessary to act across multiple levels of the model at the same time. This approach is more likely to sustain prevention efforts over time than any single intervention.
The first level identifies biological and personal history factors that increase the likelihood of becoming a victim or perpetrator of violence. Some of these factors are age, education, income, substance use or history of abuse. Prevention strategies at this level promote attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that prevent violence. Specific approaches may include education and life-skills training.
The second level examines close relationships that may increase the risk of experiencing violence as a victim or perpetrator. A person’s closest social circle-peers, partners and family members influence their behavior and contribute to their experience. Prevention strategies at this level may include parenting or family-focused prevention programs, and mentoring and peer programs designed to reduce conflict, foster problem-solving skills and promote healthy relationships.
The third level explores the settings, such as schools, workplaces and neighborhoods, in which social relationships occur and seeks to identify the characteristics of these settings that are associated with becoming victims or perpetrators of violence. Prevention strategies at this level impact the social and physical environment – for example, by reducing social isolation, improving economic and housing opportunities in neighborhoods, as well as the climate, processes and policies within school and workplace settings.
The fourth level looks at the broad societal factors that help create a climate in which violence is encouraged or inhibited. These factors include social and cultural norms that support violence as an acceptable way to resolve conflicts. Other large societal factors include the health, economic, educational and social policies that help to maintain economic or social inequalities between groups in society.