Green Dot is a program that encourages members of the community to be a part of of bystander intervention.

Green Dot approaches all understudies, staff, overseers, and personnel as partners. The first Green Dot program was imagined in the school setting to counteract prevent dating violence, sexual violence, and stalking.

Bystander awareness and training is their mission and they offer training’s in schools like Tarleton State University. These educational programs teach students that real encounters happen to students on campuses all over the world and give advice on some of the options they can take to intervene in violence. This educational plan utilizes intuitive exercises to fortify center ideas and urges their students to reduce violence.

At Tarleton State University, the program takes a total of six hours that are broken into three hours one day and three hours another day to complete. In the end, students will receive a certificate of completion. Students will be handed out a survey before the training in order to understand what they know about the course and one after the course to see what you have learned. The training is free of charge to all students who wish to participate in Green Dot training.

The main topics discussed during the training are identifying potential harmful behaviors, what you can do when seeing an incident and some proactive actions you can take to make it less likely a harmful act is carried out. It is up to the individual to determine what they think is the best course of action.

There are many different types of bystanders. A bystander is anyone within a community who witnesses behaviors that could develop into a situation that could possibly be hazardous. They all face a choice and have to ask themselves if they should get involved.There are passive bystanders and green dot bystanders. A passive bystander is someone who chooses to ignore the situation and do nothing. Green Dot bystanders are someone who decides to take an action to decreasing the probability of an incident occurring.

There are the “3 D’s” which are to direct (check-in yourself), delegate (get someone else to intervene), and distract (create a diversion to diffuse the situation at hand). The goal is to assist the person who is potentially in immediate danger in the best way that is seen fit to the bystander. It is what is comfortable for that person intervening so that they are safe as well.

At the end of the training, the booklet that has been handed to you will have a pledge to “Find a way to do or say something in any situation that feels like a potential red dot; regularly contribute proactive green dots that will make it clear violence
is not okay and everyone is expected to do their part; change anything I may be doing that contributes to interpersonal violence; support and encourage my friends and family to take responsibility for safety in our community; believe and support anyone in my life who is hurt by interpersonal violence.”