SCHRIEVER AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Nearly three decades of military service, many of them as a member of the chaplain corps, has given Dr. Ken Robinson a passion for helping military families develop strong, healthy relationships.
He believes it’s this passion that will help him thrive in his new role as Schriever’s Specialist for the Primary Prevention of Violence.
“I’ve come here to try and help our installation really develop good programs to lower instances or reduce bad things from happening: domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault, suicide, workplace violence, things like that,” he said. “I’m also going to be looking at building a really great, positive program to help people have really great relationships so they’re at lower risk for these things happening.”
During his military service, Robinson spent time in both the Air Force and Army chaplain corps, served as a NCO in the Air Force and began his service with the Marine Corps. After retiring from the Air Force Chaplain Corps in 2006, he spent six years in the Army Community Service Family Advocacy program at Ft. Carson.
“I’ve got lots of military experience and quite a bit of experience working with military families, couples, Soldiers, Airmen and Marines,” Robinson said. “The one thing that’s really important to me is I have a high passion for seeing our military couples, families and Airmen just really thrive and have great relationships.
“What’s really nice about being a chaplain is you have access everywhere and you can go to the (most junior) person, to the (most senior) person and you develop relationships,” he said. “You get to know people and people come to you with struggles and issues that they would never go to anybody else with. It gives me a down to earth view of people and the struggles they have, whether they’re individual or relational struggles that sometimes others don’t get.”
As the SPPV, Robinson will lead and develop programs designed to reduce instances of personal violence.
“The first thing I’m going to do is use some evidence-based tools to assess the relational climate here,” Robinson said. “I’m going to look at things like risk factors and protective factors and try to assess what kind of people, families and couples are at risk.
“Those instances (of violence) will go way down, it’s almost nil, when people are in safe, secure relationships,” he added. “A lot of the areas we’re looking at reducing (violence occurred) because there was severe relationship distress and anxiety. When anxiety elevates, people make bad choices.”
Having someone dedicated to researching and implementing prevention programs will allow other helping agencies on base dedicate more of their resources to response if an issue occurs.
“Prevention previously has been done by offices that also have response,” said Paula Krause, Schriever Sexual Assault Response Coordinator. “Having one person look at all prevention, (the Air Force) is hoping will take some of that stove-piping away. Instead, let’s have one person look at all violence that’s happening, all of those statistics, and bring it all together and help develop strategies to address it and prevent it before it occurs.”
For example, Krause said she spent more than 3,500 hours last year in training. Those are hours she’s not spending responding to victims of sexual assault. Having a SPPV in place will allow her to refocus efforts on response.
“It will allow a lot of us agencies that have been doing both to really focus on our primary mission, which is working with the victims,” she said.
Additionally, Robinson will take over as the manager of the Green Dot program.
“The thing I really like about Green Dot is it’s really Airmen (and) peer driven,” he said.
Because Green Dot training gives members credit for their Sexual Assault Prevention and Response training this year, many associate the program with the SAPR office. Having Robinson take over primary responsibility should help members better understand the full breadth of the program.
“Green Dot was never supposed to be just associated with sexual assault,” Krause said. “Shifting it away from the SARC office to the prevention specialist will really get the message out that this is not just a sexual assault training. This is more of a lifestyle and cultural change.”
Robinson said Schriever members will begin to see the positive impacts from Green Dot once members fully understand and utilize the methodology.
“Green Dot is based on a social-ecological model and on the theory that small groups of people can change norms in a community,” he said. “Once a certain amount of people start believing the Green Dot philosophy and living it, other people will be influenced by that.”
Members who have questions, concerns or comments about how to improve prevention efforts should feel free to share them with Robinson.
“I’m really looking for people who want to make a difference as well,” he said. “Bring concerns about how you’d like to see things improved. I’m really hoping to find people to say, ‘I want to partner with you’ as we build a climate here on the installation that’s all about positive, succeeding relationships.”
Robinson said he’s excited to start working together with Team Schriever members.
“I am just really looking forward to getting to know people and working in a collaborative way with commanders and first sergeants and the different helping agencies on the installation. It’s so important we work as a team. Team input and team success,” he said. “Come along for the journey with me.”