Facilitating change: Program manager hits the ground running

Published Aug. 21, 2017
By Staff Sgt. Jami K. Lancette
434th ARW Public Affairs

GRISSOM AIR RESERVE BASE, Ind. -- Taking the high road and being socially responsible is what one Grissom team strives to instill in its Airmen, and a new manager is helping push that change.

Christy Shives, 434th Air Refueling Wing violence prevention integrator, recently took over Grissom’s Green Dot program here, in an effort to decrease interpersonal violence across the Air Force.

Green Dot training is a first step of a five year strategy that arms Airmen for violence prevention to reduce rates of interpersonal and self-directed violence in the Air Force.

Shives’ goal is to not only following Air Force directed Green Dot training, but find Grissom specific issues and offer training to Airmen and their families to help eliminate those concerns.

“Right now my focus is to figure out what programs we need to work on at each instillation,” said Shives. “So not only are we doing Air Force directed training which are things like Green Dot, but we are also going to focus on things like training awareness campaigns and prevention type activities.

“Those activities include resiliency training, how to treat people with dignity and respect, emotional intelligence and how to be empathetic,” Shives added.

And it will take a village to aid Shivers in her goal to help Airmen be Green Dot ready as she will be adding some unique Grissom specific programs to already existing programs set in place.

“In order for us to do that we need to gather data, we get that data from all of the responding and helping agencies on base such as security forces, fire department and more,” said Shives. “No identifying information is given just specific incidences and numbers to help us identify any trends so that we can do a proper analysis.

“This information gives us an idea of target specific training that will be more geared to our instillation,” added Shives.

Shives is no stranger to the Air Force and the diverse work environments that Airmen encounter on a day-to-day basis, as she has worked with the department for over 30 years.

In 2012, Shives retired from the Air Force after 24 years of service. In conjunction to that she has earned her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology.

During her Air Force career she has worked in base supply, Intelligence, maintenance, command post, operations and retired as a first sergeant.

“I’m one of those people that kept accumulating Air Force Specialty Codes and worked my way through,” said Shives. “I like learning information; I like doing something new and different all the time.”

Green Dot differs from traditional [Air Force] bystander training intervention training in that instead of only focusing on high-risk situations, it provides scenarios, tools and strategies to deploy in the perpetration of all forms of power-based interpersonal violence, to include sexual assault, domestic and dating violence, stalking, child abuse, elder abuse and bullying.

“The Air Force takes this serious and I take this serious,” said Col. Larry Shaw, 434th Air Refueling wing commander. “I treat people properly and with respect and I expect everyone from my commanders down to the most junior Airmen to do the same.”

Green Dot training is offered at every unit training assembly, alternate training assemblies and periodically throughout the month. For more information or to sign up contact Shives or your unit training manager.

The 434th ARW is the largest KC-135R Stratotanker unit in the Air Force Reserve Command. Men and women from the Hoosier Wing routinely deploy around the world in support of the Air Force mission.

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Facilitating change: Program manager hits the ground running

Public Affairs Staff