Research Projects

This study centers an engagement stance emphasizing the complex, multi-systemic protective factors experienced by young people living in city contexts that when concurrently mobilized can potentially increase social cohesion and critical consciousness that promotes positive youth development (PYD) and collective efficacy. This study seeks to expand knowledge on how to re/orient praxis to reflect these liberatory processes and center an at-promise paradigm by chronicling a participatory, power-sharing, co-creative digital filmmaking program for young people, staffed by young people. This study explores the role of mesosystemic supports using macro/meso-therapeutic interventions (M/MeTI) rooted in socially engaged art (SEA) through digital storytelling and youth civic engagement as tools for enhancing collective efficacy and fostering PYD. Art is a catalyst for transformation and SEA centers co-creative, collaborative work to promote social action. The intersection of social work and SEA holds potential for youth civic engagement and dismantling traditional deficit-oriented research paradigms to center dialogical practices and empower one of the most undervalued facets in society—youth voice.

In collaboration with the Albany County Family Court’s Juvenile Drug Treatment Court system, the University at Albany School of Social Welfare has implemented a four-year Enhancement Juvenile Treatment Court program. Housed in the Community and Public Service Program, this program centers on an assets and strengths-based approach to foster protective factors, resiliency, and empowerment for young people experiencing substance use and criminal charges. Together with Judge Susan Kushner and the tremendous Albany County Family Court team, the School of Social Welfare’s Community and Public Service Program integrates UAlbany student tutors and peer mentors to set educational goals and career planning and provide social support to young people for sustainable change. Through hands-on tutoring and peer mentoring for young people interfacing with Albany County’s juvenile drug court system and a trauma-informed courtroom training series, the School of Social Welfare seeks to demonstrate that this transformative engagement and diversion model provides comprehensive and compassionate support to young people and court personnel that work tirelessly to keep at-promise young people positively active in their communities.

This dissertation study emphasizes the actionable role of participatory research practices to enact social change and address the lived and stated needs of young people living in city contexts. Using an arts-based youth participatory action research (YPAR) approach, this study explores macro/meso-therapeutic interventions (M/MTI) featuring Youth FX, a digital media filmmaking and storytelling program in Albany, NY. The study chronicles Youth FX’s flagship summer filmmaking program that acts as a ‘center of gravity’ for young people to foster a sense of community that in turn enhances collective efficacy. (Dr. Jennifer Elkins, PI).

Dissertation: Digital Storytelling and Fostering Collective Efficacy

Storying as Reclamation Data Poetry Zine: bit.ly/Sharkey_2024

Stoying as Recamation Documentary: bit.ly/StoryingAsReclamation

In 2018, the Athens Regional Public Library was one of twelve institutions in the United States to receive a federal grant from the Institute of Museum of Library Services (IMLS) and partnered with the School of Social Work at the University of Georgia. The initiative focused on developing the first trauma-informed library system and applying a trauma-informed framework to the library setting. TILT places MSW interns and a licensed clinical supervisor in the library system to (1) provide social work resources and referral services; (2) train library staff on trauma-informed care; and (3) to conduct a contextual assessment and implement systems-level trauma-informed care, including the development of a library specific trauma-specific environmental survey. (Dr. Jennifer Elkins, PI; Caroline N. Sharkey, project coordinator).

Lead by doctoral candidates Whitney Toledo and Sarah McCollum and Maureen Flint, PhD (PI), this project explores women’s experiences in academia through collective biography from a feminist, transdisciplinary, intersectional frame. Crosscutting disciplines, classifications, and subject positions, we use dialogue to explore the nuances of what it is to be a woman in academia, and the experiences of building and developing community as women. This project draws from a fall 2020 focus group and uses poetic transcription to convey the texture of our experiences, offering both methodological and empirical implications for studying and researching women’s experiences in academia.

The COVID-19 pandemic posed unrivaled challenges for the modern workplace. This study examined the experiences of non-teaching university staff during the pandemic. We conducted a survey of 171 non-teaching staff at a four-year, state university and a mixed-methods analysis of the data guided by the Job Demands-Resource and Collective Trauma models. Quantitative analyses identified that stress related to COVID-19 and financial concerns were associated with increases in psychological stress, anxiety, and depression. Qualitative analyses supported these findings, uncovering central themes of Organizational Interconnection, Organization Disintegration, and Self-Efficacy that help further underscore the drivers of the psychological strain felt by non-teaching staff. These findings help elucidate how COVID-19 has affected a workforce that is essential to the day-to-day functioning of the university ecosystem but has been categorically overlooked, placing an increase in job demands without a commensurate increase in job resources. Researchers: Jay O’Shields, Caroline N. Sharkey, Oluwayomi Paseda, Christopher Strickland, & Elyssa Schroeder (Dr. Rachel Fusco, PI).

The purpose of this study is to better understand the effectiveness of course activities and assignments being used this semester to teach SOWK 7112 or Human Behavior in the Social Environment (HBSE). This study focused on the use of Angie Thomas’ young adult novel “The Hate U Give” as a common read/”case study” for a semester-long HBSE course and application of knowledge on: (1) theoretical perspectives of human behavior; and (2) biopsychosocial development over the life course. This project involved a group panel of young people from local middle and high schools providing guidance to MSW students about experiences of being young today and the impact of state-sanctioned violence and youth civic engagement. (Dr. Jennifer Elkins, co-PI, and Caroline N. Sharkey, co-PI).

School districts are required to have emergency operations plans in place covering a range of potential crises. However the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for school districts has been unprecedented. The purpose of this study is to better understand how school districts have responded to the current COVID-19 pandemic crisis. In particular, this study examines what district-level programmatic and policy protocols implementation looked like, areas of concern, and lessons learned. (Dr. Jennifer Elkins, PI and Caroline N. Sharkey, co-PI).