Rate My Professor Graeme Stuart

Dr Graeme Stuart serves as an Honorary Lecturer in Community Welfare within the School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences, part of the College of Human and Social Futures at the University of Newcastle. He holds a PhD from the University of Newcastle, a Master of Letters in Peace Studies from the University of New England, a Bachelor of Social Sciences in Welfare Studies from the University of Newcastle, and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Melbourne. Stuart's career encompasses over 40 years in practice, research, and teaching, beginning in 1983 through social change movements and shifting to family work in 1992. He joined the Family Action Centre at the University of Newcastle in 2003 as a community worker, supporting permanent residents of caravan parks and facilitating workshops for Aboriginal fathers in prison, before transitioning to lecturing roles until 2021. Earlier positions include Casual Lecturer and Research Assistant in the Discipline of Social Work, School of Social Sciences from 2000 to 2003, Youth Development Officer, Adolescent Support Worker, and Peace Worker from 1991 onwards.

His research specializations encompass strengths-based practice, community engagement, inclusive group work, nonviolent relationships, asset-based community development, family engagement, counselling, wellbeing, humanitarian disasters, conflict, and peacebuilding. At the Family Action Centre, key projects included assertive outreach with women experiencing homelessness, Engaging Aboriginal Fathers, building social capital with refugee communities, Peaceful Pathways evaluation, and What can we do? Communities Responding to Violence. Currently, Stuart is part of the Name.Narrate.Navigate (NNN) team, a trauma-informed preventive program for young people who have used or are at risk of using violence in families and relationships, which secured $600,000 funding over three years in 2021. He volunteers with the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP), established in 1975, facilitating workshops including the first online session during COVID-19, co-convening the international research team, contributing to council roles, and co-authoring books. Notable publications include the book Building Peace and Community: Alternatives to Violence Project Around the World (2024), Working with Youth Violence: The Name.Narrate.Navigate Program (2023), chapters such as Reflecting and Looking Forward (2024) and An Evaluation of AVP with Refugee Communities in Sydney, Australia (2024), and journal articles like Moving Experiential Peace Workshops Online (Peace Review, 2021), Evidence-informed practice and the integration of research, policy, teaching and practice in family services (Developing Practice, 2019), and Navigating dilemmas of community development: Practitioner reflections on working with Aboriginal communities (Community Development, 2016). His blog, Sustaining Communities, has nearly 2,000,000 views worldwide. From 2008 to 2019, he taught courses on group leadership, community engagement, family studies, and domestic violence response.