Well Dukes

Ep. 8 Green Dot & Bystander Intervention

October 21, 2020 The Well Season 1 Episode 8
Well Dukes
Ep. 8 Green Dot & Bystander Intervention
Show Notes Transcript

Want to know how you can be an effective bystander and help others?  In this episode, Jordan has a conversation with Lorie Miller (former Senior Assistant Director for Reservations and Events at UREC) and Aaliyah McLean (JMU '20 & Racial Equity Coordinator) about their experiences with Green Dot, JMU's violence prevention program. They share their tips for students on how to use the 3 D's of Green Dot and how we can all apply them in a variety of settings.

The link for the transcript to this episode can be found here.

If you'd like a Green Dot training or Overview talk for your club, organization, or friend group, use this link for more information: https://www.jmu.edu/healthcenter/sexual-violence-prevention/Green-dot.shtml or email us at welldukes@jmu.edu

Be Well Dukes!

All episodes of Season 1 (2020 - 2021) were recorded  when The Office of Health Promotion or, The Well, was a part of the University Health Center and located in the Student Success Center. As of summer 2021, The Well no longer exists and we are now UREC Health Promotion. Check out Season 2 Episode 1 to learn more about these changes or visit JMU University Recreation's website.

Episode 8 Transcript & Links
Links
https://www.jmu.edu/healthcenter/sexual-violence-prevention/Green-dot.shtml

Transcript
0:02 Jordan: Hi there! Welcome to Well Dukes, brought to you by The Well. Each week, you’ll hear conversations from a variety of JMU staff and students that we hope will challenge what you know, think, or do in regards to your own health and helps you be Well Dukes.

0:22 Jordan: Hey there. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Well Dukes, I'm Jordan McCann, Interim Associate Director of the Well, and I'm happy to be back again as your host. Today we are talking about Green Dot, the prevention program we have here at JMU. I myself am a trained Green Dot facilitator, and I have two other guests with me today, and I will let them introduce themselves.

0:45 Lorie: Hi, thank you Jordan. My name is Lorie Miller and I'm a senior Assistant Director for reservations and events at the University Recreation Center here on the campus of James Madison University, and I am a facilitator and have been a facilitator for Green Dot since the program started here on campus.

1:07 Aaliyah: Thanks Lorie. My name is Aaliyah, I use she/her/hers. And I'm a recent JMU grad, graduated in May, which is really cool. And I now serve as the Racial Equity Coordinator with the Provost office. And so what's really cool about Green Dot is I was a part of the first cohort during my sophomore year at JMU, or my junior I can't remember, but I'm usually close, for the first cohort. And I also served as student body president where I helped coordinate and oversee different policies for survivors and those about sexual violence.

1:53 Jordan: Great, thank you both again. I'm so glad that you're able to do this, and I'm really happy that we're going to be able to have different perspectives on this episode. So for those of you joining that have never heard of Green Dot before green.is a program at JMU that works with students to address and change the campus culture surrounding interpersonal violence. Interpersonal violence can take on a variety of forms including, but not limited to sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking. As Lorie said, Green Dot has been on campus since the... 2018. So we've been doing this for a little over two years. Since then we've trained hundreds of JMU faculty, staff, and students on how to identify when a harmful situation is happening, or about to happen, and how they can respond. So you might be asking yourself: “Why Green Dot?” We get this question a lot. Green Dots are the proactive and reactive responses to interpersonal violence. Proactive Green Dots are the positive things that you can do to set the standard that any form of interpersonal violence is not okay with you. These are things that are ongoing and can happen at any time. Reactive Green Dot would be something more along the lines of calling for help or asking someone if you can walk with them if you notice someone is following them. We'll talk more about how to intervene later in this episode, Green Dots are the good things we can do and red dots are the incidents of interpersonal violence or harm that we want to prevent. So Lorie and Aaliyah, you both know this information as you facilitated and attended Green Dot training, which leads me to my first question. Why did you both get involved with the Green Dot initiative?

3:35 Lorie: So Jordan, um… The reason I got involved was, I actually was... had some experience with interpersonal violence when I was younger. And so when I heard about this program I thought, “Oh my gosh I wish that this program would have been something that I-- was that would have been available when I was younger, and that students and my friends and other classmates could have experienced and had that training also.

4:10 Jordan: Thank you, Lorie.

4:14 Aaliyah: I know for me when I first got the email. I had received the email saying I had been nominated to be a part of the training. And I was so interested and I was like, “Oh, what is this is something new.” And at the time I was on the executive assistant of the Student Government Association, and I brought it up during one of our leadership team meetings and I was like “Hey, did anyone else get this email?”, and my biggest thing is, I feel like when we are advocating for other people, we always need to be learning. And so I was like, I think we should do this program. I think we should learn more about this, you know, what is this because, you know, getting on what is it to be a Green Dot, what does that look like. So I'm like “Oh I'm so interested, I really want to try it out.” And when I was looking at off and I was reading about it and I saw that it's a program to kind of be reactive you know, and- and kind of be proactive in a way, of kind of stepping up in the moment and stepping up before these things happen. I was like, I feel like we have to do this and so I remember just signing up right away I was so excited. I remember the trainings, mine happened in UREC, and I just could not wait to see what we were going to learn. So that could really be a positive change on our campus. Since our motto is “Being the change,” I think we need to be reactive throughout that.

5:25 Jordan: Yeah, Aaliyah you just maybe think of a good point too. This program used to be called Dukes Step Up. So for some of our listeners you might remember that the term Green Dot replaced Dukes Step Up. And I think we love the program for a reason. Both of y'all said but it really does… It starts off with the model of really getting students that are invested in it, so we intentionally sought out student leaders like yourself, Aliyah, to really help us support it and spread the message of it. And we like it because it gives really good tangible action plans. Afterwards, and so Aaliyah you went through the like full four hour training Right. Yeah.

6:10 Aaliyah: Yeah, I did.

6:11 Jordan: And it wasn't that bad, right?

6:13 Aaliyah: No, it was actually so much fun because we had broken up into activities. And we also got a bomb meal so you know that always makes it enticing, but it was so... It was like you learned, but then you put it in play, and we did like some roleplay and then we were able to make an action plan for other people around us. And so it made it fun and it made it... It was nice because you got to talk to other people about what you were learning, or maybe questions you had, and it was a group effort.

6:39 Jordan: Yeah. Awesome, thank you for sharing your perspective, too. So I mentioned this briefly in the beginning, when we're talking about reactive Green Dots, or the things that we can do when we see a red dot situation happening, we teach students that there are three ways in which they can respond. And I think this is what makes Green Dot really memorable also, we call them the three D’s, and they stand for Direct, Delegate, and Distract. So, I want to give a brief description of each and then we'll go over some examples. So a direct response would be, as it says, is just directly intervening. Directly confronting someone in the moment. To delegate would be to seek help from someone else to help intervene. So if that's in a position that you don't potentially feel safe, yourself, because we would never want a bystander to put themselves in harm's way. So, if it does feel like a potentially dangerous situation, delegating to get someone that's better trained would be an example. And then a distraction, which is my personal favorite, and we'll share some examples but like it says, it's creating a distraction. So again, if there's something that we witness happening, being creative and coming up with a way that we can potentially distract the person doing harm. In order to kind of defuse the situation. So from each of your own perspectives, what are scenarios and examples that come to mind when you think of one of these different ways to intervene. So, I'll let you kind of, you know, especially even based on your own personal style, because that's also what makes Green Dot really good is- is knowing that there can be barriers that people intervene in situations like sometimes there can be, you know, again, based on our own personal barriers, like, I'm just really not a confrontational person or I don't like conflict or, I don't know what to do. I'm not prepared for that so we try to prepare students but we also offer them these options because you can kind of tailor it to your own personal style. And it's allowing everyone to have the choice to do something. So, what comes to mind are some of the things you've even seen for ways to intervene using one of the three ways?

8:59 Lorie: I like what you said Jordan, about the... I feel like, too, that this is an easy way for those people going through the bystander training to actually remember that. And I also like that, what you said about not everybody's comfortable. Maybe during... they might have barriers and so I think someone or everyone should be able to use one of these to help intervene and so if you had said that one of your favorites is a distraction and I'm like, that's one of my favorites, too, but I'm going to use the direct response, because I've actually had to use this in the past. And so I think I work with a lot of students, JMU students because I employ them at UREC. And so, I am very in tuned to what's going on with them and so if I see or notice that a student is, you know, coming in and they're not themselves or their, their mood has changed, or that I see physical signs on their bodies or whatever that says you know that this is, this is maybe an issue. I'll directly go to them and ask, you know, like “hey, how's things going and you know, how's your life and, you know, how's classes and how's your health personal things going on?” And so I've used direct response quite often and, and sometimes that works really well for me.

10:41 Aaliyah: Something that I have seen before, that I even have used, is the delegate method. And so a lot of times I've noticed that sometimes in different situations, maybe it's in a classroom situation, maybe it's at a social gathering, or you just see from afar. Sometimes people may not be willing to listen or may not feel like they trust you. So I've noticed sometimes I'm able to kind of get someone else that I think may have a certain relationship with them and they'll be willing to talk to or listen to and they won't feel attacked or guarded. And I'll kind of delegate that by saying, “Hey, I saw you know, your friend or our friend over there, you know, at a social event. She looked kind of comfortable or he looked uncomfortable. Would you mind talking to her about this, I just think someone should be on the lookout for this?” Or just just ask them, and I noticed that has been helpful in a way to make them feel like they have that sort of trust and they don't feel attacked, they don't feel guarded. And in a way, it's like someone's looking out for them, and they're able to open up about it or kind of their terms, versus kind of sometimes me being direct or me trying to distract and so I've always liked the three different methods because you can find, yeah, what works best for you but also in that moment for that other person. So we are really able to be reactive and where you are able to kind of come and intervene in these real situations and so I like the delegate method a lot so they get other people involved and give it that community feel. That we're all here for you, and that we're all supporting you.

12:11 Jordan: That's a great example. Thank you, thank you both. And, and so that leaves, yeah, my favorite distraction method. I really love doing this one in the trainings because students can be really creative with this one. But like I said, a distraction. So, this could be a lot of different things, especially in that type of scenario. My favorite one, that I think about, is kind of calling on, like, bluff. Now the thing about it is it's going to look different with COVID, but I used to always provide the example or suggestion of like, sometimes it's just kind of getting near people, and I used to say like, you know, you just kind of get up in their, in their space a little bit, which we can't really do now and we're going to talk about that at the end. But um, you know, so it was it was kind of just like, if you just kind of made your presence known so even if it was like two people arguing and you just happen to be on your phone and you just kind of scoot a little closer and you're just standing there, you might just be on your phone, but usually that's kind of when people know someone's kind of hovering. They kind of, you know, take a second like, “Who?”, you know, um, but I've seen other things. You know especially like it could be as simple as honking your horn, if you're in a car and you see something happening like outside of a house or in a parking garage, like, just honking your horn, just kind of again that little like, “Hey!”, I'm here, someone else's here, you know, um, but we've also seen things like the spilling of the drink or, you know, kind of going up to someone, especially if people are feeling a little bit more theatrical, you know going up to someone, “Oh my gosh. Hey wait you're in my, you're in my like English 101 or my COMM class like, you sit behind me right?” And they might just like “No I don't know who you are at all,” but it still takes that one second to kind of defuse a situation that might kind of call attention to something else, and then again kind of deescalates it. So I always really enjoy hearing all of the different things that people can come up with. Because we have in fact heard a lot of creative lines and especially. It allows students like we said in these trainings, they're thinking about their realities and they're thinking about spaces that they might see these happening, and so they come up with scenarios that are applicable to those. So, and that kind of goes into the next point. Like I said, going over the three ways how people can intervene is really helpful. We give them examples, they practice it, they roleplay. And a lot of these are easy to do in everyday life once you kind of get comfortable and understand what your different style is. But I also want to talk about, in your all's opinion, what are some situations that using Green Dots could be helpful that may not be as intuitive to students?

15:16 Lorie: So, I think some of the areas that I kind of think about, especially in today’s time is kind of like bullying, and you know, our... Do we see that? And there's this, you know, could it be addressed and stopping some of that, if we see it and could, you know... Or do we need to delegate and have someone else check, check, about it but that's one of the topics and things that I think about.

15:47 Aaliyah: For sure. I think too... I think the skill that I can... I think a skill that helps you see, to put into other situations, is that direct communication piece that you were just kind of mentioning. Even like, within bullying, within our personal relationships, within how we are, in our professional settings or academic settings and our friendships and our everyday lives. Just learning that communication is so important and it's important to know what your communication style is and others around you, and learning how to be direct and assertive with our feelings. I think for so long in our society, we have been silenced and said “Oh don't speak up. Oh, just do what the status quo says. This is what we all do around here.” But learning that like no, if I don't feel comfortable with that and I think you're not comfortable with that, it's not-- it's okay to ask and it's okay to not assume, everything's okay because I rather ask, and make sure everything's okay then, you know, not. You know, and I think sometimes that skill is so important that this program teaches you, and awareness and how to be aware of other people and their needs, because that's a skill that you need in every aspect. And you know, even power based violence, sexual violence, but also workplace harassment; knowing what's appropriate and what's not appropriate and when you feel uncomfortable standing up for yourself and standing up for your needs, and someone else beside you, if you feel like you know that's not right and they don't look comfortable. What can I do to, you know, assist them or distract or delegate and things like that? So I think Green Dot does help you translate so many different skills that, you know, we're told are these “soft skills” that really are the skills they need in every aspect of your life to, to live a fulfilled and purposeful life.

17:32 Jordan: Yes. Yeah. Um, yeah Aaliyah, thank you for reminding me. Another part of that Green Dot that we also go over is, we first talked about, like I said, some barriers and we know that one of them was kind of a popular one to bystander intervention is like the diffusion of responsibility. And you maybe think of this when you're saying like, challenging the status quo. So, the diffusion of responsibility often times we think, oh, someone else will address it. Like, I'm just one person, like there's plenty of other people that will do something about it what's mine. And I think that that is... that kind of shows up that mental-- like a lot of things are going on in our world right now, I mean like even with voting, right, that's not the physicality we want people to have like everyone has to do something. That's one of the quotes of Green Dot and it's my favorite quote, “No one has to do everything, but everyone has to do something.” And that's how we see the culture change, and I said that's what green talks about. It's shifting a culture. You know, we think of other things like social media, how it starts off really small and it's grown so much. We try to approach Green Dot in this... From this hopeful perspective that you know we can in fact reduce power-based personal violence on campus among people. If we all adapt to this mentality that yes, we can challenge the style and challenge the status quo, that we all can-- we know we shouldn't be silent, we need to intervene. We need to say something and we shouldn't be. And it goes like yeah, like you said, small things all the way to really important things. It even makes me that, you know yeah, like learning to be direct- like a direct response I even say to sometimes thinking about like... If you found out, maybe this, this has happened to me. And so I've been able to apply very much but maybe for... maybe you all too... But right, like, if you ever saw that you had something stuck in your teeth, and you're just like, “I- I cannot believe I've been walking around all day with this and no one said anything! I talked to people, and no one said anything.” And maybe you've been on the other end of it where you're like, “Oh I see they have something stuck in their teeth but I don't want to tell them because that's embarrassing.” But if you're the one, you're like, “Man! Why didn't anyone tell me it was just as simple as like, ‘Hey, there's something in your teeth.’” Like I just don't you know, and so that happened to me, and I vowed from that day on, I was like, as uncomfortable as it is, I might feel awkward myself but I'm going to tell that person right and same thing like if you have toilet paper on your shoe or something when you leave like you don't want to be the one embarrassed you want someone to tell you and so you need to do the same to them. So it's like, yeah, a small and those little things like that. But if we can, you know, even start there feeling comfortable and not being afraid to like, address something. You know those are going to grow into these other situations where we recognize there is potentially harm being done or about to be done.

20:38 Lorie: Yeah, and I think for me, to just add to that, I love that Aaliyah. I think, I think everyone… we're all so caring. I think that's the thing about being at JMU being a student or a faculty/staff. We're all so caring and we want everybody to know that we care about them, so sometimes it's hard to have those difficult conversations or to speak up because you're afraid you're gonna hurt somebody's feelings. But I think people have to. We have to be careful about how we do that but then also, as that person receiving that information, you know, be okay and it's kind of like, like this saying, you know, we're gonna have to agree to disagree or, you know, we're all in this together so we're all not going to think the same. So I think it is very challenging to be direct and have this conversation, but we're doing it for the good, you know, we're doing it for the good of that person and for our relationship and their relationships.

21:40 Aaliyah: Something I thought about is like I just wish our society and I feel like a jam up and just so many areas just need to start normalizing these “uncomfortable conversations” because they're not really... They're not weird. I mean even when it comes to like, you know, when you have something in your teeth, we all get something in our teeth, we eat. That's a normal thing but we seriously, like we get so nervous about bringing something up in these tough conversations but like, we need to talk about them. Like if you feel uncomfortable with someone, or if you see something with someone, why don't we normalize like, yeah, we can talk about this. Like, this is not okay, here I'm gonna help in this situation. I just look at our society at JMU, we pride ourselves in opening doors, and I feel like we need to get better opening doors to conversations that we are avoiding constantly and all the time. It’s not weird, it's normal to have differences, it's normal to stand up for things, we all have to play a part in our community. That's why I've always loved that Green Dot saying.

22:40 Jordan: Yeah and then, just to kind of touch on briefly, as I said earlier, knowing that we're living in the time of COVID and we've seen so many things too, it's been interesting to see also how some of the skills and the things that we say in our Green Dot bystander trainings can also still kind of apply to the things that we have going on here. Like even just kind of like, I think you both kind of touched on it but I see it show up. Even with, like, the wearing of the masks right? Like it's just something we want to do to protect others. And so we've had to adopt that kind of mentality, but also creating and shifting the culture in that way that's just now something we do because we want to all protect one another. So, at the end of every green training we ask students how they can commit to doing one proactive Green Dot within the next 24 hours. What are some proactive Green Dots that students can do today, or what would you all commit to as a Green Dot that you can do in the next 24 hours?

23:43 Lorie: So one of the things that I do is I have a lot of signs in my office, posters in my office, that talk about Green Dot. I also wear a green dot on my name tag so people out in the community, when they see me, they ask me, you know, “What's that green dot for?” And so I love it because I can give my like little, you know, 10 seconds, one minute, two minute elevator speech of what green dot is so those are the things that I can do myself. One of the things that I like to encourage the students that I facilitate groups for is to also think about other groups and organizations that you belong to and would they benefit by having a bystander training brought in to their-- one of their meetings or one of their sessions and so to get more people on campus involved?

24:45 Aaliyah: Something that I think I can commit to doing now that I have transitioned from being a student to now being a faculty member, which is, you know, a pretty big deal... I think I try to pride myself more on really trying to educate students on  what does it look like to be a green dot on our campus? And really like, I think I'm so used to being a student and, of course, seeing my peers about it being reactive. But I think I need to commit to being a faculty member-- really trying to educate other people how I was educated and I was tapped in, and then from there, I tell other people in it. I think I need to really commit to really doing that and putting something on my office door at work saying “Oh, come talk to me because now I do have the skills and have the knowledge,” and now I feel like I need to do a better job of pass that on to other students, so they are able to do that as well.

25:43 Jordan: Yes, thank you so much. As a person that kind of works in coordinating all the Green Dot, we just appreciate having you all and having the support so much because it wouldn't be able to be done without you all. And yes Aaliyah, now that you got your own office, we can definitely get you posters, we will get you some posters and swag and everything to get up in there.

26:05 Jordan: Um. All right, so just to kind of wrap up I have two final questions for you both. So we asked this of every guest: what advice would you give your undergrad or your younger self?

26:20 Lorie: I love that question. So, I was, I think about that sometimes on just many topics, but for this one I think that I would tell myself that you know don't feel like that, the situation you're in, or what's happened to you is your fault. But then also to know that it's, it's okay to ask for help, but it's not okay for someone to mentally or physically abuse you in any way. So just know that there's people out there that can help you and don't be afraid and ashamed of that.

27:06 Aaliyah: I think one thing in addition to everything that Lorie just said, I wish I would have... I learned so much about the green flags and what a healthy relationship look like, but I wish I would, you know, took more time to seek out “What does red flags look like?” I think sometimes it's okay to be like, “Oh well, yes they do that but they have this one green flag.” And knowing that, I wish I learned and valued my work so much more than I did. I feel like, in undergrad, because I think so much, and so many people... And really, I'll just speak on myself. You just want to be accepted and you want to feel worthy and you want to feel all these things, but I just wish we all would understand that you're worth it, regardless, and you're always enough, you know, and so never seen a situation that does not feel right to you. Always say, once I have one red flag, like, leave. Like, you are worth so much more than that to settle an inch deep down below your worth. And knowing that whatever happened in your past does not define you and your future, and define you who you are today, and so that's one thing I was thinking about, I would have told myself more.

28:17 Jordan: Well thank you both for sharing, and especially those experiences, and I appreciate your vulnerability and honesty there and I think it's really helpful. For those stories... It's why I love doing this podcast and I think it's important to share people's experiences because others can always-- I truly believe there's always someone that can relate, in some way, until I think that's really helpful. So my second question now has to be a little, a little light, a little random. Today, this episode’s been a lot of great information, but just to give us something a little bit more lighthearted... It is autumn, currently, when we're recording this. It's October, which is my favorite month. So I'm going to ask you both. If you were a type of tree, what type of tree would you be and why?

29:33 Lorie: I think I would be an evergreen tree, hence its name, it’s always green. And I think it… You know, we provide shelter all year round. So, I'm a nature person. I love watching birds and rabbits and squirrels and things like that so I just feel like being a big evergreen tree would provide shelter and support for all my friends around forever.

30:08 Aaliyah: That’s funny that you said an evergreen tree because I would be a pine tree, which is an evergreen tree. And I just love the fall when all the pine cones start to fall off the tree. Reminds me of my grandma's house and being outside raking all the leaves and putting all the pine cones and one like little... I guess pile? And it reminds me that winter's coming and that's one of my favorite seasons, along with fall, so that's what I would be.

30:35 Jordan: Oh, thank you both great answers. All right, well, thank you to our listeners for tuning in and hearing all of this information. If you are interested in having a Green Dot training or a Green Dot Overview speech for your organization, your club, for you and your friends, there will be information in the episode description, with a link on how you can request that on our web page. Be sure to follow us and subscribe to our podcast so you can get all of our future episodes. Next week, we will be talking about alcohol and the different effects alcohol can have on a person. And be sure to also follow us on our social media, and we hope you enjoyed this episode and all of its great content, and remember to be Well Dukes.
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