Enhancing Equity in Clinical Social Work Education

Supporting Indigenous Queer and Gender Diverse Students and Researchers

This open-access article, published in the Clinical Social Work Journal (2025), examines how higher education in Australia can better support Indigenous Queer and Gender Diverse (QGD) students and researchers. It highlights the systemic challenges these students face and proposes pathways for creating more equitable, inclusive, and culturally safe academic environments.

The authors - Péta Phelan, Olivia Meyers (Donnini), Shai McAlear, Jen Evans, Kelly Menzel, and Bindi Bennett - draw attention to the invisibility and marginalisation of Indigenous QGD voices in universities. Despite policies promoting diversity, institutional practices often reinforce colonial, heteronormative, and cisnormative structures, leaving students isolated and unsupported. The article argues that this lack of recognition and relational care directly impacts the social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) of Indigenous QGD people.

Central to the article is the call for culturally responsive supervision and mentorship. Supervisory relationships that acknowledge identity, culture, and lived experience are framed as critical to academic success and personal wellbeing. The authors also advocate for embedding Indigenous QGD knowledges into curriculum, hiring more Indigenous faculty, and providing stronger orientation and transition programs.

Overall, the paper challenges higher education to move beyond tokenistic inclusion and towards equity that is relational, trauma-informed, and grounded in cultural safety. It positions Indigenous QGD students and researchers not as problems to be managed, but as knowledge-holders whose contributions enrich clinical social work education and the academy more broadly.