Bianca Stawiarski

Distinguished Visiting Scholar

The entry appointment for invited academics holding a special tenure with us. This position acknowledges you as a specialist in your field in higher education

About

Bianca F. Stawiarski is a Badimia (Yamatji) and Ukrainian researcher, counsellor, author, educator and social entrepreneur living and working on Kaurna Country in South Australia. She is a PhD candidate with Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education. Her doctoral research asks: How can we best integrate ngardi guwanda practices to strengthen community led women’s empowerment projects for entrepreneurship? Her research explores how ngardi guwanda, a Badimia concept of listening, thinking and feeling strongly, can inform community led approaches to women’s empowerment and entrepreneurship. Through this work, Bianca is interested in what becomes possible when research and program design create space for women’s knowledge, lived experiences, relationships and inner knowing to guide the direction of empowerment initiatives. Bianca’s research and practice sit at the intersection of Indigenous knowledge systems, decolonising methodologies, social and emotional wellbeing, trauma informed practice, women’s empowerment, entrepreneurship and relational approaches to healing. Central to her work is the understanding that people and communities hold their own knowledge and answers when the conditions exist for deep listening, cultural safety, reciprocity and self determination. She is the Founder and Managing Director of Warida Wholistic Wellness, a First Nations social enterprise committed to decolonising approaches to mental health and wellbeing. Bianca is also the creator of the Warida Method, an Indigenous informed framework for empowerment and holistic wellbeing that brings together Deep Listening, Inner Fire and the Ripple Effect. The Method translates Indigenous relational knowledge, trauma informed practice and empowerment approaches across counselling, leadership, community development, organisational wellbeing and women’s empowerment. Her published work includes Gudu Guduwa: Healing Disconnection Through Incorporating Bush and Animal Assisted Therapies Into Therapeutic Practice: A First Nations Reflection, published in the Psychotherapy and Counselling Journal of Australia, and Ngardi Guwanda: Self Care Sips: Reconnecting with Your Inner Fire. Her writing and research explore connection to Country, Indigenous healing practices, deep listening, reciprocity, trauma, empowerment and the relationship between individual and collective wellbeing. Bianca holds a Master of Counselling Practice and brings together academic research, clinical practice, lived experience, cultural knowledge and more than three decades of professional experience. She contributes to the counselling and psychotherapy profession through clinical and cultural supervision, education, professional leadership and governance, and has guest lectured and presented her work in university, professional, community and international settings. Her approach to research is relational rather than extractive. She is particularly interested in Indigenous and decolonising research methodologies, insider research, Indigenous data sovereignty and governance, storytelling and yarning, reciprocity, Indigenous pedagogy, social and emotional wellbeing, and First Nations women’s empowerment and entrepreneurship. Across her research, writing and practice sits a continuing exploration of deep listening: how listening, thinking and feeling strongly can create the conditions for women and communities to reconnect with the knowledge they already carry, strengthen agency and shape their own pathways forward. Refer to https://www.warida.com.au/speaking/ OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0083-1985 Academia: https://biancastawiarski.academia.edu/