简介

Jill D. Sharkey is a Lecturer with Security of Employment in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology. This position involves teaching, coordinating the school psychology credential program, mentoring students, and modeling the scientist-practitioner program philosophy with an active applied research program. Dr. Sharkey earned her school psychology credential in 2002 and received her Ph.D. in Special Education, Disability, and Risk Studies in 2003 from UC Santa Barbara. She has been teaching in the UCSB Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology (CCSP) program since 2004. Teaching: Dr. Sharkey is responsible for the development and instruction of second-year fieldwork (CNCSP 274D, CNCSP 274E, and CNCSP 274F) and internship courses (CNCSP275), in which she engages students in class activities and supervision to develop students’ fieldwork competencies. She draws upon her own experiences working as a school psychologist to provide supervision with an understanding of how local schools function. She strives to extend graduate student learning beyond typical practice so they become leaders and change agents to improve education for all students across a breadth of social, emotional, and academic competencies. Another primary teaching responsibility of Dr. Sharkey’s is to conduct an ongoing research practicum course (CNCSP 209). The goal of this research practicum is to engage students in CCSP’s scientist-practitioner program philosophy and to advance their skills in research and evaluation. Dr. Sharkey has an active research program conducted here through the Center for School-Based Youth Development and is the Principal Investigator for numerous contracts and grants to conduct research and evaluation projects. To inspire her research mentoring, Dr. Sharkey has developed professional relationships with scholars across the world through research collaboration conferences to capitalize on the synergism of multiple perspectives. She models collaboration with mentors, colleagues, and students to investigate system response to adolescent problem behavior. She trains students how to study ways schools can better engage students at-risk for emotional and behavioral difficulties, especially youth involved in bullying and delinquency. She mentors students to promote school safety and prevent school violence through their own unique applications and by helping them work to change public perceptions and policies regarding student discipline. Research: Dr. Sharkey’s research centers on promoting student engagement for all children and primarily for children who have experienced a variety of personal, family, and community risk factors. In particular, she is focused on understanding optimal family, school, and community response to youth at risk. Her recent contracts and grants have included examining school response to youths at-risk for gang involvement, innovation in juvenile justice response to females on probation, and evaluation of reentry services to promote positive outcomes for probationers. Dr. Sharkey is also interested in understanding the impact of bullying and the stigma of bullying on psychosocial functioning. Furthermore, she is passionate about transforming school systems to respond to students with challenging behavior with restorative rather than exclusionary approaches. Program Administration: Another aspect of Dr. Sharkey’s role in CCSP is the coordination and accreditation of the School Psychology Program. This includes significant time dedicated to maintaining core standards of excellence across credential programs in the broader Gevirtz Graduate School of Education; collecting and monitoring data on applicants, current students and their supervisors, and alumni and their employers; and scrutinizing the curriculum and program requirements to ensure they meet the myriad requirements of numerous accrediting bodies in the most efficient way. She successfully led the School Psychology program through Program Review with the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). She also has been engaged in the seven-year review cycle for accreditation with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, APA review, and the University of California’s internal Program Review Panel (PRP). Professional Contributions: Dr. Sharkey currently serves as a Lead Reviewer for the NASP Program Approval Board. Associated with this role she also networks with faculty across the country to address issues in training school psychologists. She provides review services for several journals including Journal of School Violence, School Psychology Review, and the Journal of Adolescence. Over the years she has accepted several requests for ad hoc reviews including evaluating the quality of research output through South Africa’s National Research Foundation, reviewing books for Pearson and Brookes Publishing, and evaluating convention proposals for NASP and APA. Community Service: Dr. Sharkey serves on many local community groups to protect the rights of and enhance services to youth at-risk. She is an elected member of the Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council, which determines juvenile justice policy and standards for Santa Barbara County. She also serves as an Executive Committee Member and Strategy Team Member on the South Coast Task Force for Youth Gangs, which is a group of community leaders that meets monthly to improve services and outcomes for youth in gangs or who are at-risk for joining gangs. One of her goals with these groups is to push the community to work towards common measurable goals and to develop a method of data sharing across agencies to facilitate service delivery to youth.