Susan Swearer, a nationally recognized expert on bullying in schools, spent two days this week at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., consulting on a new anti-bullying and social-emotional learning effort called Emotion Revolution.
Swearer, Willa Cather Professor of Educational Psychology at UNL, will be among the speakers at an Oct. 24 Emotion Revolution Summit at Yale University. Among other things, the summit will serve as a launch pad for a new resource center developed in partnership with Facebook, Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and the Empowerment Initiative based at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
“The scope of this project is revolutionary, in that we aim to amplify the voices of youth in every school and to empower educators and youth to create emotionally healthy schools,” Swearer said.
Swearer is director of the Empowerment Initiative, a nonprofit organization founded in 2013 to support translational research to create healthy environments that support children, youth, families and schools. It grew out of a 2012 grant-funded collaboration with the Paul Mitchell network of cosmetology schools to develop a social-emotional curriculum targeting self-empowerment, anti-bullying and healthy relationships.
“On behalf of the Empowerment Initiative, it was really great to be a part of the planning for Emotion Revolution,” Swearer said.
During her visit to Facebook headquarters, Swearer worked on the development of the social-emotional learning resources to be launched during the summit.
Facebook’s involvement in the effort vastly increases its reach, Swearer said.
“Facebook adds an unprecedented scalability to this important educational effort in our nation’s schools,” she said. “Being on the Facebook campus was a fantastic, unique experience. It was a great space for brainstorming ideas and activities that will shape the future of Emotion Revolution.”
Swearer was accompanied on the trip by her daughter, Catherine Napolitano, a Lincoln East High School senior chosen as a Facebook Youth Fellow on the Emotion Revolution project.
