Caroline Sharkey, PhD, MSW, LCSW, LICSW — I am a licensed independent clinical social worker and an Assistant Professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY), School of Social Welfare. I hold a PhD from the University of Georgia School of Social Work. My research and practice center on the impact of trauma and historical trauma on young people living in city contexts and their communities. This work focuses on collective efficacy, social cohesion, crisis response models, and community embodied frameworks as ways to address the needs of young people in cities to promote at-promise youth paradigms and to mitigate trauma, including community violence, state-sanctioned violence, mass and school mass shootings, and historical trauma. I examine the role of meso/macro-therapeutic interventions, including socially engaged art, digital storytelling, restorative practices, and youth civic engagement, to foster positive youth development (PYD) and critical youth perspectives. I work to promote social work in non-traditional/non-clinical settings and to advance social work practices beyond conventional clinical domains.

My research methods center on youth participatory action research (YPAR), intersectional qualitative research, arts-based mixed methods, and emancipatory research methods. It is integral to shift the deficit paradigm about city communities to an asset paradigm that embraces the joy, authenticity, and informal support systems that can foster collective efficacy. I proudly embed my experience as a queer, Maltese-Arab/Irish, “city-kid turned urban scholar” into my work to address the lived and stated needs of people and communities in small, mid-sized, and metro cities. My work as an educator of more than 25 years addresses curriculum violence using culturally sustaining pedagogies, trauma-informed teaching, and multi-modal/experiential learning.

At the core of my scholarship is the balance of clinical experience and micro-oriented expertise, meso-systemic research, practice, community engagement, and policy development to enact sustainable change. I proudly embed my experience as a queer, Maltese-Arab/Irish, “city-kid turned urban scholar” into my work to address the lived and stated needs of people and communities in small, mid-sized, and metro cities.

As an educator of more than 25 years, my teaching approach addresses curriculum violence using culturally sustaining pedagogies, trauma-informed teaching, and multi-modal/experiential learning. Being able to teach and learn in democratic learning environments helps me remain committed to a collaborative space where each member’s perspectives and voices shape how we learn together. I was a long-time teacher and director at the Albany Free School and co-founder of Grand Street Community Arts, a community center in Albany, NY’s South End. I was a museum educator and assistant director of the New York State Museum’s Youth Services, which included award-winning programs such as the Museum Club, Discovery Squad, and Time Tunnel Summer Camp. Beginning in 2018, I was a part-time instructor in the School of Social Work at UGA and I have experience teaching advanced research, clinical, generalist, HBSE, field seminars, and anti-racism courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. I was the project coordinator for the Trauma Informed Library Transformation (TILT) program embedding trauma-informed services in the Athens-Clarke County public library system.

Clinically, I have more than 10 years of experience as a social worker in community mental health and crisis intervention services. I am a psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, and clinical operations administrator at Project Family, a community mental health agency in Athens, Georgia. Previously, I was the Director of Youth Services for Advantage Behavioral Health Systems and oversaw multiple state and federally-funded programs totaling $1.6 million annually for youth mental health, school-based services, early psychosis, suicide prevention, and young adult services. In this role, I oversaw a team of more than 40 clinicians, paraprofessionals, and staff providing services across 10 counties in northeast Georgia. I was also an on-call advocate for the Cottage of Northeast Georgia, providing crisis intervention and advocacy for sexual assault survivors. As a clinical intern, I worked in settings addressing homelessness, cancer support, mutual aid groups, oncology social work services, and piloted a program to embed social workers in a local urology clinic to increase resource connections and provide brokered case management. I have served as a psychotherapist, crisis interventionist, clinical supervisor, and clinical liaison in community mental health and as an expert witness in Georgia’s juvenile court system.

A long-time community organizer, I seek to amplify the voices of people living in city contexts (aka urban communities) and develop interventions that foster collective efficacy and emancipatory healing spaces. I provide trauma-informed organizational training to school systems, libraries, youth-centered organizations, community services, and child welfare systems. In 2021, I joined the Georgia Conflict Center as a board member and served as Board president from 2022 - 2023. I believe deeply in being civically engaged, and I remain active in numerous community organizations and projects. I work with youthspaces (organizations centering collaborative work with young people) to become trauma-informed and advance social work practice in non-traditional/non-clinical settings.

I have a number of publications and have presented at more than 300 professional community presentations, trainings, workshops, and juried conference presentations. In 2023, I was featured along with my colleague, Bhawin Suchak, Co-Executive Director of Youth FX, in NY Now, a weekly news feature on the NY PBS affiliate WMHT discussing the role of digital storytelling in addressing youth mental health. In 2022, I was a Society for Social Work Research “Brief & Brilliant” scholar and presented “I got your back: Digital storytelling and socially engaged art as macro-therapeutic interventions to foster community-level collective efficacy and positive youth development.” My dissertation was in collaboration with Youth FX, a digital filmmaking program for young people in Albany, NY. Together, Youth FX and I released a short ethnocinemagraphic documentary and a poetry zine titled “Storying as Reclamation” in March 2023 about this collaboration and have plans for a book collaboration in 2024.