ABOUT THE SAVE LAB
Established in 2024, the Sex and Violence Evaluation (SAVE) Lab is a clinical-forensic research and training lab in the Department of Psychology at York University.
Our Mission
The SAVE Lab uses rigorous research, clinical-forensic expertise, and knowledge mobilization to prevent sexual abuse and violence. The lab works to improve evidence-based assessment, intervention, and policy while centring dignity, equity, safety, and respect.
Our Vision
A world in which sexual and interpersonal violence no longer occur, and in which prevention, justice, assessment, intervention, and healing are guided by science, compassion, and respect for all people.
Our Core Values
The lab’s four core values guide how SAVE members develop, make decisions, conduct research, and work with one another.
Growth, Initiative, and Leadership
At SAVE, developing researchers and clinicians is part of the work. The lab provides rigorous training, useful feedback, and progressively greater responsibility. Leadership is the earned capacity to recognize what matters, act with judgement, help others grow, and move shared work forward. The lab aims to help members develop the competence and character required to prevent harm.
Discovery and Innovation
Research requires creativity and discipline. Members begin with the question and use the methods needed to answer it well. This may require adapting, combining, or building tools. The lab welcomes unconventional questions, work across disciplines, and tests of bold ideas. Novelty is not enough: a new approach must be supported by evidence, meet ethical and accessibility requirements, and have practical value. The lab revises or abandons approaches that do not work.
Collaboration, Connection, and Care
Research depends on relationships among people working toward a shared purpose. Members, participants, colleagues, and communities each bring knowledge, perspectives, and goals that deserve serious consideration. Members share information, credit, opportunities, and responsibility. They listen across differences, challenge ideas without humiliating people, and support one another’s development. Collaboration does not remove disagreement or accountability; it makes both more useful when grounded in respect, reciprocity, and care.
Integrity and Accountability
Trust depends on whether members’ conduct matches their commitments. Members work honestly, disclose uncertainty and conflicts, maintain accurate records, communicate barriers early, and take responsibility for mistakes and corrective action. Members with greater power or discretion have a stronger duty to explain and constrain its use. The lab’s work concerns vulnerable people and consequential decisions. Members therefore take reasonable steps beyond bare compliance when needed to protect others, strengthen the science, and justify their trust.
SAVE Lab Handbook
The SAVE Lab Handbook provides a clear guide to how the lab operates and what members can expect from their involvement. It outlines the lab’s mission and values, roles and responsibilities, membership and progression processes, governance, supervision, professional development, evaluation, participation, and standards of conduct.
The handbook is intended to support transparency, consistency, and shared accountability across the lab.