I am passionate about creating a culture of care, health, safety, and well-being for all people. For more than a decade, I have been engaged in research, curriculum development, training and teaching on school safety, mental health, and violence prevention with educators, health care professionals, and law enforcement. To date, my research has focused on youth conceptions of social behavior,1 promotion-prevention programs to promote prosocial behavior and prevent bullying in schools,2 a broader theory of bystander intervention3 and an upstander program to promote peace and prevent bullying,4 and youth-led approaches for health and safety, such as student-led efforts to promote resilience after a school shooting.5
My research focuses on lay conceptions of problems (e.g., social behavior, mental health, peace and violence), promotion-prevention programs for health and safety, and promotion-prevention mindsets. My practice involves the design and delivery of team-based training courses for educators and school resource officers,6 physicians and mental health providers,7 school administrators and dispatchers,8 and youth and adult allies.9
Currently, I am teaching 30 first-year and second-year students the public health research stream of the First-year Research Immersion program at Binghamton University. Students learn how to conduct team-based research on school and community-based topics, such as youth mental health, violence prevention, and food security. To advance a more open and reproducible science,10 students are writing in Markdown, coding in R, and publishing reproducible documents and presentations using Quarto.
Education
University at Buffalo
- Pursuing M.S. in Community Health and Health Behavior
Virginia Tech
PhD in Developmental Psychology, 2016
MS in Organizational Psychology, 2014
BS in Marketing, 2011
Research and Practice
Published 7 peer-reviewed articles, 7 book chapters, and 21 reports
Developed 8 training courses for youth leaders, health care professionals, and educators
Received $600,000+ as co-PI to develop promotion/prevention programs and implement them
Delivered 150+ presentations: 18 invited presentations, 31 academic presentations, 14 invited course lectures, 19 industry/higher education workshops, 28 assemblies for students, 20 student leadership workshops, and 25 presentations for school-based professionals
Footnotes
McCarty, S. & Dunsmore, J. (2022). Adolescents’ perceptions of helping and aggressing at school: Salience of benefit-harm, extent of impact, and collective dyadic power. Current Psychology.https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03806-4↩︎
McCarty, S., Teie, S., McCutchen, J., & Geller, E. S. (2016). Actively caring to prevent bullying in an elementary school: Prompting and rewarding prosocial behavior. Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community, 44(3), 164-176. https://doi.org/10.1080/10852352.2016.1166809
McCarty, S. M. (2014). Promoting prosocial behavior to prevent aggression and bullying in middle schools: an environment, person, and behavior-focused intervention (Thesis, Virginia Tech).↩︎
McCarty, S., Arnold, M., Booker, J., Pacqué, K., & Liskey, M. (2022). Bystander interventions for promotion and prevention: Applying promotion science, motivation science, and behavioral science to upstanding. https://psyarxiv.com/9gdj8↩︎
McCarty, S., Pacqué, K., Booker, J., Liskey, M., & Arnold, M. (2021). Designing a promotion-prevention bystander intervention program: Applying intervention mapping to encourage promotion and prevention upstanding. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/av8jh
Booker, J., McCarty, S., Pacqué, K., & Liskey, M. (2024). Evaluating an integrated promotion and prevention bystander approach: Early evidence of intervention efficacy and potential moderators. Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community. https://doi.org/10.1080/10852352.2024.2313383↩︎
McCarty, S., Pacqué, K., Gatto, A., Hill, K. & Charak, R. (2022). Youth-led resilience promotion during disaster recovery: A proposed framework, innovative program, and lessons learned. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice and Policy, 14(S1), S32 – S40. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0001142↩︎
Panagopolous, J. & McCarty, S. (2020). Preventing Problems by Promoting Positive Practices: An e-learning course. COPS Office of the U.S. Department of Justice. https://copstrainingportal.org/project/p5-preventing-problems-by-promoting-positive-practices/↩︎
McCarty, S. (2021).Promoting Well-being & Preventing Ill-being within Program Committees: A team-based Toolkit for Well-being Champions. Toolkit for the Department of Family Medicine, PCBH PATHS, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, TX.↩︎
Say Something Anonymous Reporting System. Sandy Hook Promise. https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/our-programs/say-something-anonymous-reporting-system/↩︎
Programs. Promote Care & Prevent Harm. https://promotecare.org/programs-overview↩︎
Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS). https://www.bitss.org↩︎