By Marisa McTighe, Assistant Social Media and Distribution Editor, Elizabeth Lande and Mari Kanagy, Reporters
For the past few months, the Vashon DoVE Project has been working to broaden their impact on the Vashon community. Earlier this year they launched a program called Green Dot.
“[Green Dot is] a national movement that promotes education around bystander intervention,” said Nyn Grey, one of the two Green Dot trained personnel at the DoVE Project.
While Green Dot may be a relatively new name to most people on Vashon, it is actually a long-standing program with global impact.
Since it began at the University of Kentucky in 2006, Green Dot has produced positive results in the reduction of sexual assault, stalking, dating abuse and domestic violence. Its success brought it to the attention of DoVE.
“This is the first year that we are rolling out Green Dot on the island,” Grey said.
Although there is curricula available for other age groups, the DoVE Project is currently working with just the adult curriculum.
Green Dot hopes to not only teach communities how to help those who are put in uncomfortable or unsafe situations, but also to increase awareness of their occurrence. The idea is that doing so will lower rates of physical, emotional and sexual harassment.
Green Dot operates through workshops — which are free and open to the community — that focus on realistic bystander intervention.
“[People] want to help, but sometimes they don’t for a variety of valid reasons,” Grey said. “Maybe intervening doesn’t always feel safe or maybe some people are shy.”
Green Dot operates so that participants can “consider other ways of intervening that accommodate personal barriers.”
Grey hopes to further expand Green Dot into the school district, but she acknowledges the difficulty that comes with that step.
“It will take … time to get training in place for those organizing the program in the schools,” Grey said. “What is being offered at this time on the island is a basic introduction to Green Dot. It’s a general overview of the idea.”
The training would include strategies such as engaging with the victim in order to deescalate the situation. Participants would learn to do this in a way that would prevent further conflicts.
One key strategy at the trainings is the “Three Ds,” — direct, distract and delegate. Each method provides a different solution to a potential problem.
Using the “direct” approach means “directly intervening with either the person experiencing the potential harm or directly intervening with the person doing the potential harm,” according to Grey, while “distraction” calls for the bystander to “create a distraction … which can disrupt the flow of activity in the moment.”
The last strategy, “delegation,” gives a solution to a person who may be scared to enter the conflict by “getting someone else to intervene like a friend, person of authority [or] trusted community member.”
Collectively, these strategies help to lower the rates of interpersonal violence, but they don’t call for people to make monumental actions.
“No one person needs to be a hero and do everything to make our community a safer place to live and thrive,” Grey said.
However, Grey placed emphasis on all people doing their part to decrease the rate of violence.
“If every person did one small act here and there to intervene in an active way … we begin to shift the culture on our island to one where violence in any form is not tolerated, and peaceful interaction is encouraged and promoted,” she said.
Green Dot classes are free, and led by Grey and her co-leader Tracie Mach. Classes are open to students, community members and anyone who wants to learn how to be a helpful bystander. The next class is from 3:30-5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 21 at the Vashon KCLS library. To register, contact nyn@vashondoveproject.org.