Bullying Research and Victim Empowerment (BRAVE) Lab

  • Personal Empowerment

    Embracing oneself serves as an important starting point for embracing others. The BRAVE Lab investigates the factors that impact self-esteem, self-efficacy and other facets critical to developing and maintaining a healthy sense of identity. It also explores ways of combating bullying, anxiety, depression and other barriers to personal acceptance.








  • Cultural Empowerment

    The BRAVE Lab considers how a variety of interrelated systems – from communities to schools to the media – establish cultural codes and environments that cultivate or impede attitudes of acceptance. The Lab also examines how these conventions and contexts shape the social experiences and personal perspectives of individuals.


  • Social Empowerment

    Interacting with family, friends, classmates, co-workers and other groups influences how people perceive themselves and the world around them. Accordingly, the BRAVE Lab researches and develops prevention and intervention approaches designed to cultivate understanding, acceptance, and an appreciation for individuality.



The BRAVE lab conducts translational research designed to foster positive, accepting communities free from bullying and other negative behaviors. Studies conducted through the BRAVE lab focus on identifying and addressing the complex personal, social, and cultural factors underlying bullying behaviors, thereby advancing practical solutions to promote healthy relationships within families, schools, and communities.

Current Research              Past Research

Our Mission

The nonprofit BRAVE Lab supports translational research designed to foster positive, accepting communities free from bullying and other negative behaviors. Studies conducted through the Lab focus on identifying and addressing the complex personal, social and cultural factors underlying such behaviors, thereby advancing practical solutions to promote healthy relationships within families, schools and communities.

To support this mission, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the BRAVE Lab (d.b.a. Empowerment Initiative Fund).

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Our Lab

While our lives as graduate students, faculty members, and researchers keep us very busy, we also like to explore fun things offered in Lincoln and beyond! The pictures included below represent a snapshot of the fun things our research lab have done together. We also do an annual food study for fun, so we can try out food and beverages in the local area. An example food study is the Better Burger Study. To learn more about the current faculty and graduate students in BRAVE Lab, click here.

History

Dr. Susan Swearer has been a member of the school psychology faculty at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln since 1997, where she started the Target Bullying Research lab in 1999. Her research on bullying behaviors among school-aged youth has examined correlates and consequences of bullying, with the goal of helping students, school personnel and parents stop the bullying dynamic. The Target Bullying lab has also shed light on the important mental health connections underlying bullying and victimization. As a licensed psychologist, Swearer has taught and supervised the Child and Adolescent Therapy Clinic, focusing on training school psychologists in evidence-based cognitive-behavioral treatment approaches. Her clinical work and research led to the development of the Target Bullying Intervention Program, an individualized cognitive-behavioral approach to working with youth who bully others.

In 2012, Swearer received grant support from the Andrew Gomez Dream Foundation to collaborate with the Paul Mitchell network of cosmetology schools on the development of a social-emotional curriculum targeting self-empowerment, anti-bullying, and healthy relationships. This project served as the catalyst for the founding of the Empowerment Initiative through UNL's Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools in 2013. The Empowerment Initiative will facilitate and support translational research that advances understanding of the individual, social and societal factors necessary to create healthy environments that support children, youth, families and schools.