Green Dot Founder to Speak at Old Dominion University

September 25, 2017

Students help raise awareness of the Green Dot strategy following a recent Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event.

Dorothy Edwards, the founder of the Green Dot violence prevention strategy, will discuss how she developed the ground breaking intervention program during a lecture Sept. 26 at Old Dominion University.

Edwards' lecture will be held at 7 p.m. in the North Café of Webb Center.

Now used on every U.S. Air Force base world-wide, over 200 college campuses across the nation, a growing number of Army bases and communities around the world, the Green Dot Strategy is poised to shift cultural perceptions on the scale of the anti-drunk driving movement.

Green Dot employs a mixture of public health methodology and social change theory to capitalize on peer influence and spread two critical social norms: that violence is absolutely unacceptable and everyone must do something to keep their community safe.

It also teaches bystander intervention skills to opinion leaders, empowering people to step in whenever red flags for bullying, harassment, sexual assault or relationship violence appear. Research by the Center for Disease Control shows, after four years of implementation, that Green Dot is effective in reducing incidents of violence up to 50 percent in areas where it is used.

Edwards was prompted to abandon the traditional approach to violence prevention and develop Green Dot after interdisciplinary research showed the potential for a new approach.

"It occurred to me (much too far into my career to be having this insight) that I was not the first person that ever wanted to prevent something," she said. "This keen stroke of brilliance led me across multiple disciplines reading anything I could find that involved someone having some success in trying to prevent anything. From Public Health to Social Psychology to Marketing, Communication and Persuasion — there was a goldmine of research that could provide well-informed guesses as to where we might go next as a field. The prevention successes out there are many and their applications to this work are invigorating and inspiring."

For more information about this event or the implementation of Green Dot at Old Dominion University, contact the Women's Center at 757-683-4109.