Age: 36
Job Title: Registered Psychologist, Wellness and Psychological Services, Student Affairs, MacEwan University
Why She’s Top 40: She’s changing the way we think and talk about sexual violence in our community
When Jill Green accepted a psychology job at MacEwan University, she already had seven years of experience working at the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton. When she realized that the university had no resources in place to help a vulnerable population cope with and prevent sexual violence, she knew that needed to change. Together with her team at the Sexual Assault Centre, Green submitted a funding proposal to the federal government, who had put out a call for ideas to engage young people against sexual assault toward women on campuses. The application was successful, and Green was instrumental in developing MacEwan’s Sexual Violence Prevention and Education Committee, the sexual violence response team and the sexual violence policy and procedures that are in place today.
“From there it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. Now there’s an actual sexual violence response coordinator, a sexual violence prevention education coordinator, policies, procedures and systems for feedback,” Green says.
It’s a program that Green and her team constantly revise based on feedback from the campus community.
“I’m pretty optimistic,” Green says. “I have big dreams that I siphon down into smaller goals based on concepts I want to see in terms of change in the larger community.”
Long-term, Green would like to expand her work beyond the MacEwan campus and apply the initiatives that have worked for this program to other industries. “I would love Edmonton to be at the forefront of having institutions – journalists, medical practitioners, police officers, anyone working with people – take up trauma-informed training. I’d like to see more consent-based and empathy-based curriculum in schools.
