Carolyn O'Connor

Dr. Carolyn O’Connor is a social work clinician, instructor, and researcher dedicated to serving the mental health needs of her community through direct practice as well as shaping the next generation of social workers. A proud graduate of the University of Toronto’s MSW program, Carolyn currently supports clients in private practice who are experiencing depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, stress, and other mental health concerns. Her clinical approach draws primarily on Narrative Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, also integrating mindfulness, affect regulation, behavioural science, harm reduction, and parts work to meet the unique needs and goals of each client.

As a social work educator, Carolyn’s teaching philosophy is rooted in profession’s core values: advancing social justice, honouring student self-determination, fostering human connection, and cultivating professional competence. She aims to co-create inclusive, dynamic, and safe learning environments that support students’ critical thinking and reflection, helping them “think like social workers” rather than simply learning “how to do social work.” Emphasizing the implicit curriculum and parallel process, Carolyn strives to model and embody the same principles, skills, and theories in the classroom that students will later apply with clients in their clinical practice. She recently completed her term as Student Director on the Ontario Association of Social Workers’ Board of Directors, a role in which she represented, supported, and advocated for social work students across Ontario.

Her research interests include the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence and understanding complex sexual consent issues, particularly among adolescents. Her past and current research projects include evaluating a primary prevention program, conducting a qualitative study on the impact of the #MeToo movement on survivors’ decisions to disclose or report, and supporting a multi-province study of child welfare responses to children’s exposure to intimate partner violence.

Dissertation: Understanding early adolescents’ conceptualizations and processes of sexual consent: A mixed methods study

Selected Publications:

O’Connor, C., Brown, S., Nagata, J. M., Testa, A., Mishna, F., & Ganson, K. (2025). Sexting behaviours among adolescents and young adults in Canada. The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, 34(1).

O’Connor, C., Alaggia, R., Begun, S., & Peterson, Z. (2024). An exploration of sexual consent beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours among middle school students in Canada. American Journal of Sexuality Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/15546128.2024.2388226

O’Connor, C., Alaggia, R., & Nixon, K. (2024). “Something’s got to give”: A qualitative exploration of child welfare responses to cases of intimate partner violence exposure in Ontario, Canada. Journal of Family Violence. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-024-00700-4

Alaggia, R., O’Connor, C., West, K., & Fuller-Thomson, E. (2023). Troubled times: Canadian social workers’ early adversities, mental health and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. International Social Work, 67(1), 99-118. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020872822114438

Begun, S., Barman-Adhikari, A., O’Connor, C., & Rice, E. (2020). Social support and pregnancy attitudes among youth experiencing homelessness. Children and Youth Services Review, 113, 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.104959

King, B., Fallon, B. A., Boyd, R. K., Black, T., Antwi-Boasiako, K., & O’Connor, C. (2017). Factors associated with racial differences in child welfare investigative decision-making in Ontario, Canada. Child Abuse & Neglect, 73, 89-105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2017.09.027