'Green Dot' is coming to Kuna and Melba schools

The Kuna and Melba school districts will be the first in the state of Idaho to implement an anti-bullying program called the “Green Dot” initiative.
In essence, Green Dot trains students to intervene in bullying, harassment and potential fighting situations.
“Kids want to do things to help,” Kuna High health teacher Tim Stanley said last week during a presentation to the Kuna school board. “But they just don’t have the modeling or the training on what to do or how to do it right.”
Green Dot is a power-based personal violence prevention program that promotes the active bystander intervention as one of its approaches to preventing certain abuses that often occur within a school’s community, such as bullying, harassment and teen dating abuse.
A grant from the Center for Healthy Teen Relationships will include:
1. The training of two teachers per year, and substitute teachers for those teachers if training takes them out of the building. The training will be provided by Green Dot certified instructors.
2. The training for groups of students and facilitators. One training will take place this spring, and two are scheduled for next fall.
3. Materials for curriculum, training and visual aides and marketing tools to launch the program.