Caroline N. Sharkey

Caroline N. Sharkey (she/they) is a licensed clinical social worker with more than 25 years of experience as an educator and community-engaged practitioner. 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. She examines 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.

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Research Interests

Trauma; historical trauma; urbanicity; YPAR; socially engaged art and digital storytelling; restorative justice practices; community violence; mass and school shootings; curriculum violence; anti-racist culturally sustaining pedagogies; trauma-informed teaching.