News

McChord CAIB covers new Green Dot program

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  • By 446th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
  • 446th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. --  Team McChord leadership held a Community Action and Information Board to learn about trends and issues affecting the joint community here Jan. 19.
During the meeting, top issues discussed included suicide prevention and the need to decrease domestic-interpersonal violence.

Members from the JBLM Helping Agencies attended the meeting, providing leadership with a wealth of expertise to help address issues affecting military members and their families.

“Without this practice of having a community forum, helping agencies could end up working in a stovepipe, unaware of the availability of other services or options for referrals,” said Jeanne Morrow, 446th Airlift Wing Psychological Health director and Integrated Delivery System chairperson. “Leadership might be unaware of trends and risks affecting the mission readiness of their servicemembers, and this collaboration between agencies and feedback to the command structure is the foundation for a healthy community.”

The IDS team is includes Family Advocacy, Armed Forces Community Services, Employee Assistance, The Health and Wellness Center and the Sexual Assault Response Coordinator, and other agencies. All agencies work together to collaborate on issues so they can provide the most appropriate services effectively.

In December, the Air Force announced the Green Dot training program as the first step of a five-year strategy to decrease interpersonal violence across the service. The Air Force contracted the non-profit Green Dot organization to provide violence prevention tools and training to the total Air Force over the next three years.

Green Dot was discussed at the meeting, and training for the new initiative is in progress.

Dr. Andra Tharp, the Air Force’s Highly Qualified Prevention Expert, describes Green Dot as the Air Force’s first step in arming Airmen for violence prevention using an evidence-based public health model.

“We know Airmen are a vital part of the solution and we will use methods like this that have been subjected to rigorous scientific testing and were proven to be effective in reducing violence,” she said.

In an article announcing the new initiative, Green Dot was described as being expected to decrease the training burden on most Airmen and is the first step in the possible consolidation of other annual training requirements. Because Green Dot covers topics broader than sexual assault, the Air Force is exploring possibilities to consolidate other training requirements based on interpersonal violence. The majority of Airmen will receive only 50 minutes of Green Dot training in FY16, and SAPR training will instead be met through commander engagements rather than formal training sessions.

Team McChord Green Dot implementers will be trained at Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., and will return to Joint Base Lewis-McChord to train peer leaders.