Caroline N. Sharkey, PhD, LICSW (she/they) is a visiting assistant professor and researcher at the University at Albany School of Social Welfare and Project Director for the Juvenile Drug Court Treatment Enhancement program. Caroline is a licensed independent clinical social worker with over 25 years of experience as an educator, community mental health clinician and clinical supervisor, and community-engaged researcher and 30 years working in collaboration with young people and families. Her research centers on collective efficacy and social cohesion to mitigate community violence and school shootings, the impact of trauma and historical trauma, and to address the needs of young people in city contexts. They 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, empowerment, and reclamation. Caroline’s research and practice seek to expand the role of social workers in non-clinical/non-traditional settings. Their research includes participatory-action research, intersectional qualitative research, video ethnocinema, and arts-based mixed methods approaches. Caroline’s work as an educator addresses curriculum violence using culturally sustaining and responsive pedagogies and trauma-informed teaching.

Caroline has facilitated trauma-informed and crisis-response training nationally to schools, courts, juvenile circuit judge coalitions, libraries, youthspaces, arts-based organizations, and community organizations. They serve as an expert witness in family and criminal cases regarding
trauma-informed care, clinical diagnoses, gun violence, and mass shootings. When not working, which is rare, Caroline is a poet, an avid cook, a lover of documentaries, and the proud parent to three goofballs out there making the world a better place.