OTC and Drury University partnered to provide “Green Dot” Bystander Intervention training on Saturday, April 25. This six-hour session trained 28 staff, faculty and students; 20 of the participants were OTC students, which included Veteran work-study students and Phi Theta Kappa members.
What is “Green Dot”?
The Violence Against Women Act of 2014 (VAWA) requires higher education institutions to conduct an ongoing awareness and training campaign to reduce acts of interpersonal violence within college communities.
Green Dot is a comprehensive approach to violence prevention that uses student leaders to affect positive cultural change from within the student body. The Green Dot model targets all community members as potential bystanders, and seeks to engage them in proactive behaviors that establish intolerance of violence as the norm, as well as reactive interventions in high-risk situations.
Green Dot specifically targets influential and respected individuals such as student leaders with the hope that they will integrate moments of prevention within existing relationships and daily activities. The name of the program comes from the idea of turning “red dots” on a map marking incidents of violence into “green dots” of preventative actions.
OTC’s Green Dot initiative is a collaboration with the Community Partnership of the Ozarks and other local colleges and universities. For more information about OTC’s Green Dot initiative, contact Dr. Loren Lundstrom at 417.447.8197, or lundstrl@otc.edu.
