For many around the world, this is a season of color change. Just like leaves in nature, you too can change 😊. Thus enter the Red, Yellow, Green Model. What does it look like practically? Let’s look at a real-life example: Sexual Harassment and your organization or team.

One of my mantras is that having a value isn’t enough; you need a system or a plan in place. Maybe you are all for men and women being prepared for and supported in the sexual harassment they may experience on the field. Great! To paraphrase Jesus, “Are not even the tax collectors and nonbelievers doing that?” (Matthew 5:46–47)

Here’s where you can start to move from value to having system: Use the following to figure out what’s non-existent, weak, or strong in your current reality.

🔴 Red

1. You have not read or discussed the Let’s Talk About Sexual Harassment, Abuse, and Assault on the Field paper. No learning or identifying strengths or gaps.

2. You do not have clearly stated sexual harassment, abuse, and assault policies — or policies exist only informally/verbally, with no review or training.

3. You lack stated best practices for handling incidents in a host culture. In addition, member care and leadership are unequipped and untrained to support people on the field when incidents happen in the host culture.

4. No case studies of what people may experience on the field exist, and there’s no effort to learn from organization or field-specific experiences.

5. No joint training between men and women, and little to no awareness among men of what female colleagues may face in the host culture.

🟡 Yellow

1. You’ve read the Let’s Talk About Sexual Harassment, Abuse, and Assault on the Field paper, but haven’t yet discussed it as an organization or turned it into a concrete plan.

2. You have sexual harassment, abuse, and assault policies in place, but they aren’t reviewed or trained on regularly — people may not know they exist or remember what’s in them.

3. You have some general awareness of best practices for handling incidents in a host culture, but nothing formalized, and member care/leadership haven’t been specifically trained or equipped on how to handle incidents that may occur in the host culture.

4. You don’t have organization-specific case studies of what people may experience on the field exist yet, though general or borrowed examples are sometimes referenced.

5. Training happens, but men and women are trained separately, or awareness of what female colleagues may experience in the host culture is inconsistent among men.

🟢 Green

1. You’ve read and discussed the Let’s Talk About Sexual Harassment, Abuse, and Assault on the Fieldpaper. You discussed strengths in your organization and areas that need to be addressed or improved, and have a plan for changes that need to be made.

2. You have clearly stated sexual harassment, abuse, and assault policies for incidents within your organization that are reviewed and trained on annually.

3. You have clearly stated and viewed best practices for how sexual harassment, abuse, or assault will be handled in a host culture. Member care and leadership are trained and equipped to support people on the field.

4. You have organization and field specific case studies created from experiences people in your organization have had.

5. You train men and women together. Men are aware of what their female colleagues may experience in the host culture.

Reading through the RYG, you might feel somewhere between encouraged and despondent. That’s normal! This is what’s helpful about the RYG model — it’s a barometer to help you know what you might need to shore up or, on the flip side, celebrate. It’s unlikely that you are all red, yellow, or green; you’re probably a combo. For the areas you’re red, you are not stuck there forever! You can move toward yellow and green. For the parts that you or your organization are yellow, you want to put measures in place to move toward green and not slide back toward red. You don’t have to figure it all out on your own. That’s why we created these resources to help:

✅ A 64-page research paper sharing the results, offering ways to conceptualize and use the results, and providing suggestions

✅ A discussion guide for the paper

✅ A policy portfolio where people can see the sexual harassment policies for six organizations

✅ Best practices and procedures for sexual harassment, abuse, and assault experienced within a host culture

✅ A folder with downloadable images for people to use in presentations, newsletters, and other forms of communication

✅ 3 infographics: (1) summary of the results, (2) the two types of harassment experienced, and (3) how organizations can care for people

✅ 2 workshops on the results: (1) for senders complete with a discussion guide and (2) for goers

✅ 4 podcast episodes: (1) survey findings, (2) definition of terms (so good — highly recommend you listen!), (3) the role of men, and (4) best practices in a host culture

✅ AND a partridge in a pear tree — which in our case is an amazingly user-friendly webpage (thank you Ted!) for people to easily find all of these resources in one place!

A change in seasons is the perfect time for a change of color! If you want help making it, the Red, Yellow, Green training is available for field workers and member care providers, or you can grab the bundle and get both before the sale price ends at the end of the month. Or, this might be a great time to become an Insider and have access to them and more.