RAF MILDENHALL, England -- Everyone has the power to stop a sexual assault.
Team Mildenhall's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program coordinators continue to provide Airmen with needed skills and empower them to intervene.
"The concept is simple - most of us are out there doing the right thing, doing good things and all of us may be a bystander at some point which means we have a tremendous amount of power and equally, great responsibility in intervening to prevent assault," said Kimberly Dickman, 100th Air Refueling Wing SAPR manager.
All military members must have bystander intervention training by January 2012, said Dickman, whose staff holds frequent training seminars, which most Airmen agree are interactive and fun.
The training seminars entail group interaction and responding to real-world scenarios.
"The goal of the bystander intervention training is to empower our Airmen to effectively prevent sexual assaults against their fellow wingmen by providing a learning environment in which they can practice and become confident using intervention skills," said Carl Buchanan, Air Force SAPR manager.
As an overview of the educational modules, Buchanan shared the Air Force's approach to training sessions:
- Recognize situations that may lead to sexual assault
- Offer an array of available intervention strategies and an opportunity to practice them
- Offer bystander intervention techniques
After receiving the training, Airmen will be better equipped with available strategies to protect themselves and their wingmen, Buchanan said.
To schedule BIT training, Airmen should contact their unit training manager. For those wishing to further assist and learn to teach BIT, email
kimberly.dickman@mildenhall.af.mil or call DSN 238-2009.
(Staff Sgt. J.G. Buzanowski contributed to this article.)