You are now entering the
Green Zone™
“Imagine living in a world where everyone spoke to each other using a normal rate, tone and volume of speech; a world without put-downs, profanity, and threats.”
A road to respect, marked out in three colors.
Green Zone™ sorts behavior into three colors. Green is civil and respectful. Yellow and red are not. Everyone in the setting learns the difference, and everyone is held to the same standard.
That gives you a clear, measurable way to describe how people speak and treat each other, and to catch the moment someone steps outside it.
THE FRAMEWORK
Culture is measurable. You just have to know what to listen for.
Most safety planning starts after something has already happened. Green Zone™ works earlier than that.
It teaches everyone in a setting, students and adults alike, to hear the difference. Rate, tone, and volume of speech. Compliments or put-downs. Questions or rumors. Whether someone is being included or quietly pushed out.
None of that requires a specialist. Green Zone™ turns it into shared language, so a fifth grader and a superintendent notice the same things and know what to do next.
How it spread
- A Police Department Green Zone™ started inside one department, as a way for officers to read and improve how their own people treated each other.
- Schools and Districts · 2012 Districts asked for the same process, and it moved into classrooms and buildings.
- Colleges and Universities Work on the mistreatment of young women turned the framework toward dating and friendships.
- Online Spaces Students were dealing with the same behavior in group chats, so the zones followed them there.
- Elementary Classrooms · 2026 A version built for kindergarten through fifth grade enters pilot this fall.
Students impacted across the U.S. since Green Zone™ launched in the fall of 2012
Each dot represents 100 students
View schools and facilitiesPROGRAMS
Find the setting closest to yours.
Green Zone™
Every program below is built on the same three zones. The age, the language, and the setting are what change.
Green Zone™ Schools
The core implementation, delivered through training, program materials, and technology.
Ollie the Owl™ Youth Safety
The zones taught through characters and stories, with Ellie the Elephant on firearm safety.
Green Zone™ Relationships
The same standard applied to dating and friendships, and to how an institution responds when someone is mistreated.
Green Zone™ Digital Safety
The same behaviors show up in group chats and comments, and they are just as easy to name.
Green Zone™ Organizations
For police departments, agencies, businesses, and nonprofits. Where the framework began. Staff learn to read and correct the climate inside their own workplace.
Every Green Zone™ starts with someone deciding to designate one.
Tell us about your setting and we'll show you what the framework looks like inside it.
IN THE COMMUNITY
Green Zone™ in youth detention centers.
Green Zone™ reaches beyond traditional school settings. The Yavapai County Juvenile Detention Center and the Prescott Lakes Parkway School use the program throughout their facilities because the need for a common language around behavior doesn't stop at the schoolhouse door.
Detained youth experience higher levels of stress and anxiety than their peers. Green Zone™ helps staff and students communicate and process those emotions in a structured, respectful way reducing conflict and supporting the appropriate development of young people in difficult circumstances.
"Our youth and teachers discuss the Green Zone™ every morning. It has become integral to effective communication for juveniles and staff and is now part of the culture in detention."
— Daniel Femp, Juvenile Detention Manager, Yavapai County Sheriff's Office