Green Dot Bystander Intervention

Green Dot Bystander Intervention is a national bystander intervention program Tufts has adopted and adapted to our campus. Since 2014, Green Dot trainings have been offered to our campus to help student and staff gain a better understanding of their role in preventing sexual misconduct.

Think of a map of our campus and yourself in the middle of it. Red dots indicate sexual misconduct that happens on campus. This could be sexual harassment, sexist jokes, stalking, dating violence and/or sexual assault. There are more of us at Tufts that are not perpetrating sexual misconduct and are against this behavior. How do we make ourselves known on this map? By being green dots. A Green Dot is someone who has gone through a green dot training and knows the many ways they could interrupt sexual misconduct from happening on campus. It starts from creating a community and culture where this behavior is unacceptable.

Green Dot has two active approaches to preventing sexual misconduct:

Pro-Active Approach:

Being prepared to respond appropriately should someone disclose sexual misconduct; knowing our campus and off-campus resources; understanding how our reporting & adjudication process works; recognizing the difference between mandatory reporters and confidential resources.

Actively unpacking and changing our community norms, societal structures and social traditions that give permission for sexual misconduct to occur. 

Being a visible supporter by wearing/displaying green dot gear to symbolize a willingness to help and a commitment to actively prevent sexual misconduct

Reactive Approach:

Recognizing sexual misconduct and evaluating all the options of interrupting the behaviors and committing to do something or get help

Recently students described what green dot means to them: My green dot

Groups and Departments can become Green Dot certified which indicates they have completed a 4 hour comprehensive training. The training follows a public health approach of defining the problem, identifying risk factors, developing prevention and integrating those into everyday life. Each group identifies a larger societal context as well as their own social community that may contribute to an unsafe environment and make active changes during the training. Every group certified contributes to a more active and safer community at large.