By: Wyatt Crosher, Communications Coordinator for Student Affairs
When Chelsey Walker went to college at the University of Florida, she went in expecting to be a marriage and family therapist. Instead, as a second-year in 2011, she found a passion in a new path to follow.
"Once I found violence prevention, I just felt like it was a better niche for me," Walker said. "It was a better career path."
Nearly a decade later, Walker, now the Interpersonal Violence Prevention Coordinator in UNC Charlotte’s Center for Wellness Promotion (CWP), was the driving force behind Charlotte’s inclusion of the Green Dot violence prevention strategy program. The program began with 41 staff and faculty completing a certification training to become Green Dot trainers in May 2021. Those 41 trainers have now reached more than 900 faculty, staff and students through Green Dot training sessions before the end of its first semester on campus.
The idea of the Green Dot Strategy is not only to teach bystanders how to react in high-risk situations, but also how to proactively shift campus norms to prevent violence from occurring in the first place. With training accessible to all faculty, staff and students, it allows for a wider net of people within the community to be a part of the change.
“Green Dot provides practical skills to react and intervene in high-risk situations, while also offering strategies to proactively shift campus norms,” Walker said. “It’s different from other bystander intervention programs because it focuses on creating a mobilized community where we are all dedicated to preventing violence and reducing harm. It’s trying to get to the root of campus culture and create a safer environment.”
Green Dot is not specific to Charlotte’s campus, and has been implemented at more than 100 universities nationwide. One of those universities is Washington University in St. Louis, where Walker earned her Masters of Social Work. She loved the Green Dot program there and thought it would be a perfect fit for Charlotte.
Walker started pursuing bringing Green Dot to Charlotte in Fall 2020, but her efforts in the field of violence prevention began before her time at the University. Prior to joining Niner Nation, she worked at the middle school and high school levels as a violence prevention educator.
She said that the transition from working with grade school to college students has been a welcomed one, even with the differences in how to communicate a similar message.
"Middle school and high school students, developmentally, are in a place where they are more receptive to new ideas and perspectives," Walker said. "With college students, you really have to figure out their motivation and what is going to appeal to their interest in a violence prevention discussion or educational workshop.
"That's why I really like focusing on bystander intervention in a college setting, because college students just want to know what they can do about it. They know it's an issue, they're aware that this is happening to their friends and their classmates. They’re really looking for useful skills to intervene in a situation or support a friend who could be in an abusive relationship."
The data surrounding Green Dot also backed up Walker’s personal experiences with the program.
"Out of all of the violence prevention strategies out there, Green Dot has the most supporting evidence to show that it can actually reduce interpersonal violence," she said. "There's been a few studies where they've compared campuses that implement Green Dot with campuses without a bystander program, and victimization rates were at least 10% lower among students attending campuses which implement Green Dot. Ten percent less students report that they've experienced interpersonal violence on that campus."
Knowing the positive impact that Green Dot can have on a college campus, Walker realized she had to find a way to bring the strategy to Charlotte. But Green Dot came with a price tag because it requires a large team to implement the strategy. It is not just one person delivering training. Instead, it is a team of staff and faculty members within the University that provide training, outreach and events to students, as well as other staff and faculty.
Eventually, thanks to the Jamie Kimble Foundation for Courage, the strategy was funded, and Charlotte had its first staff members trained in the Green Dot Strategy on May 18-21, 2021. Walker said the 41 faculty and staff who make up the trainer team are not specific to any part of the University, something that greatly represents what Green Dot is all about.
"What's really special about Green Dot is that the trainer team is made up of staff and faculty who work across divisions and departments. We have trainers in University Advancement, Division of Student Affairs, Division of Institutional Integrity, Business Affairs, Athletics and Academic Affairs. We're a very diverse team that represents all areas of our University,” she said. “I think that's really special, to say that this is an issue our entire University cares about, and something that we're all committed to regardless of the job title, department or division that we're in.”
Now, with 855 students and 57 faculty and staff already having undergone the training this semester, Green Dot is well on the way to its first milestone: 6% of the student body (approximately 1,800 students) trained by the end of the 2021-22 academic year. The numbers through Oct. 27 already have Green Dot nearly halfway to that goal.
"The recommended benchmark for Green Dot is to reach 10-15% of the campus population with training at any given time, and that’s how we came up with the 6% goal for our first year," Walker said. “That's the minimum threshold that says 'If you can reach 10-15% of your community, that's enough people to be able to make a community-level impact.' It's actually going to demonstrate a reduction in the rate of violence on campus.
“That number is cumulative. It's at any given time, we want 10-15% of our campus trained, and we know students typically are here 4-6 years. So 6% of campus this first year is our goal.”
Walker said the hope is for Charlotte to reach the 10-15% student population threshold by Fall 2024, which gives the program three full years to meet its goal. So far, the early results have been encouraging, not just because of the number of students, but because of how those students have continued to stay involved after the training was completed.
"I think students are really excited about Green Dot, too,” Walker said. “So far, it's resonating really well. Students have lots of questions. They're reaching out afterwards asking for Green Dot swag and Green Dot buttons. They want to know how they can continue to be involved, because I think it's finally giving them a common goal and purpose. They feel like they can really stand behind Green Dot and get actively involved in it."
Faculty, staff and students can register for upcoming Green Dot training dates here.