By Yonah Lempert Luecken

Homer Independent Press


Haven House, a nonprofit organization in Homer since 1981, provides help to people who have experienced domestic abuse or sexual assaults. It also provides bystander training that may prevent some violence from occurring at all.


In 2013, Homer became one of five communities in a pilot program designed to reduce the number of violent incidents in the state. Alaska has long standing high rates of domestic abuse, child abuse, sexual assaults, suicides and violent crime. From 2013 to 2015, community members in Homer, Anchorage, Bethel, Kenai and Prince of Wales were trained to use “Green Dot” deescalation techniques in a state-funded effort to reduce those numbers.


The premise of the Green Dot program, created by psychologist Dorothy Edwards, is that violent incidents are marked on a map by red dots, and green dots mark incidents where violence is averted. According to Edwards, “When green dots begin to outnumber and displace the red dots, violence is reduced.” Trainers teach people ways to safely respond if they see an incident occurring. Safety is a priority in the program, and trainees learn to assess if it is safe to intervene and then decide which strategy is right for the situation.


Local mom and teacher Jessi Felice was trained in the techniques in 2014 and continues to train others using strategies and presentations specifically tailored to Homer. She explains that, “We adapt and change it based on the needs of our community.


Felice, who describes her trainer title as “Upstander Advocate,” promotes violence reducing techniques through Haven House as well as the local school system. She teaches that if a bystander sees a potentially aggressive situation developing, they can get involved in a variety of ways and should choose a strategy that best fits their own safety and comfort level. A key goal of the training is to help people reverse the “bystander effect,” and become “upstanders” instead. The bystander effect is a documented tendency to not help someone in need if there are other people around. Felice stresses the need to overcome that tendency and to “do something” to intervene. The intervention can include getting involved directly, disrupting behavior by distracting the perpetrator or getting help if needed.


Felice states that, “A common misconception we had was that it was just asking everybody to be kind and be nice to everybody.” She summarizes the program’s underlying goal as, “We ask you to step up when people aren’t being kind and doing that in a manner that doesn’t escalate the situation.” Felice says regarding the choice to intervene that, “It’s meant to stop moments in their tracks. It isn’t meant to fix a situation, it’s meant to avert for a moment.


Though it has been more than 10 years since the program was first introduced, it is still in use in some communities in Alaska. The Kenai Leeshore Center, an advocacy and service organization for people affected by domestic violence, will be offering a Green Dot training to professionals in May.


The years impacted by Covid presented a challenge to Green Dot and related programs. In Homer, Felice and her team at Haven House moved trainings to weekly open zoom sessions where scenarios and solutions would be discussed. While the training and interaction style changed substantially online, Felice states that anunexpected benefit was learning about conflict reduction concerns in areas as far flung as Kentucky and New York from out-of-state people who joined in.


Prior to Covid’s disruption, the Green Dot program was praised by Governor Michael Dunleavy in 2019. While announcing October as “Domestic Violence Awareness Month” in Alaska, the Governor stated, “Advocacy efforts work; thanks to Green Dot Alaska, last year more than 4,900 bystander actions safely interrupted potential acts of violence.”


In 2018 and 2019, Homer was ranked by Safewise, a Utah-based independent company that evaluates resources and statistics related to home safety, as the second safest city in Alaska, with Sitka ranking at the top of the list. Since then, Homer has dropped down to sixth in Safewise’s current rankings, just below Kodiak.


Felice states that she is “motivated to keep doing (violence prevention trainings) because there is a need.” Efforts to reduce occurrences and effects of violence in Homer continue at Haven House through the Upstander program, various programs designed to teach young people resilience and conflict avoidance, and programs to help people rebuild from effects of violence. At Homer High School, students participate in “Wear Green Wednesdays” as a visual reminder to practice conflict reducing behavior.


Haven House staff will continue their violence prevention trainings throughout the summer. Their Upstander Advocates can be contacted at jessi@havenhousealaska.org to schedule trainings. Felice states, ““Homer is unique, but it is not isolated from power-based personal violence. We can’t do everything, but we can all do something to prevent violent acts.”