Jill Sharkey of UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz Graduate School of Education is one of numerous members of the South Coast Task Force on Youth Safety to appear in the September 2016 edition of Inside Santa Barbara video profiling the work the group is doing. The video can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDmXuT_B9qw
The mission of the South Coast Task Force on Youth Safety is to improve and support the safety and quality of life for youth, families, and community. On March 14, 2007, 15 year-old Luis Angel Linares became the victim of a gang stabbing homicide during a gang brawl that took place in downtown Santa Barbara. A14 year-old was charged and found guilty of the homicide. Following this tragic incident the City of Santa Barbara launched an effort to address youth gang violence. It quickly became clear that the problem of youth gang violence is a community problem that will require a collaborative community effort to find a solution.
The Strategy Planning Committee on Youth Violence was established in January 2008 in response to Santa Barbara City Council direction to improve communication and coordination with other government agencies and non-profit organizations who are engaged with providing services and programming to local at-risk youth. In March of 2009, the South Coast Task Force on Youth Gangs was formed based upon a recommendation of the Strategy Planning Committee on Youth Violence. The members of the task force, which includes Gevirtz School Dean Jeffrey Milem as well as Dr. Sharkey, represent youth and family service providers, education institutions, government agencies and community foundations.
Jill 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. 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 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.