A campaign targeting the issue of interpersonal violence in Wrangell will pick up steam this month.
Today and tomorrow, patrons of the Stikine Inn Coffee Shop may notice a small green sticker on the side of their morning pick-me-up, as well as a nearby informational table. The green dots appeared Monday, and will continue throughout the month, said Julie Falle, the Alaska Island Community Services Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant administrator, who is helping organize the campaign.
The red dot and green dot campaign started about two weeks ago with a series of red dots placed around town listing examples of common violence problems, transitioning to green dots with proposed solutions. The campaign is intended to spark a public discussion and raise awareness of a host of violence-related ills, Falle said. “We’re not just identifying domestic violence. We’re looking at stalking, bullying, child abuse, it’s called ‘interpersonal violence.”
The red and green dots also appeared in Palmer, Petersburg, and Haines.
“They have created specific curriculum for Alaska as a community as a whole,” she said. “It’s kind of this interesting idea of branching out beyond a college subculture to a community.”
The program aims to get bystanders more involved in preventing acts of personal violence they might witness, using a three D’s: Direct, Delegate and Distract, Falle said.
“This is the take-home method,” she said. “This is what we really want people to remember.”
Direct intervention involves becoming personally involved, preferably by asking if a person involved in an incident needs help. Distract involves trying to redirect or interrupt violent episodes by indirectly intervening to distract the parties. Delegate involves getting the appropriate authorities involved, including the police, counselors, or other community members, Falle said.
“The way the campaign is structured, you start with a big media piece” which includes the dots and posters, she said. “Then it kind of trickles into talks. I did one last night with” the Garnett Grit Betties Roller Derby Team.
In addition to the coffee sales, Falle plans to address the school board and the borough assembly at meetings later this month. Program administrators have also distributed free merchandise, including hooded sweatshirts and buttons, as conversation starters.
A community assessment conducted last year indicated Wrangell had a “Level 4” readiness to address acts of violence, Falle said. “They’re basically ready to begin addressing some major community concerns,” she said. “What was identified in those community concerns was adult binge drinking and minor consuming.” So local bar patrons should also keep an eye out for green dots, Falle said.
The assessment identified alcohol as a major contributing factor in episodes of – in particular – domestic violence, and so we plan to address the issue in local bars, Falle said.
“We certainly want to be present in areas where someone would see” episodes of violence, she said. “We’re not necessarily targeting bars as a place that’s more dangerous, but we are identifying that with alcohol consumption we tend to make more high-risk decisions.”
“The way the Petersburg campaign phrased it is we just kind of get stupid,” she added. “We do things that we regret. If we’re looking at Green Dot in a very basic sense of keeping people safe, keeping people from making high-risk situations, we’re not telling them ‘Drink less.’ That’s not the point of this intervention. We’re empowering the friends and the bartenders and the other community members to feel empowered to do something about it.”
The campaign will wind down about mid-March, Falle said.
More information is available online at http://www.livethegreendot.com.
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