Rate My Professor Patrick O'Leary

Professor Patrick O’Leary is Professor in the School of Human Services and Social Work at Griffith University, where he currently serves as Co-Lead of the Disrupting Violence Beacon and Director of the Violence Research and Prevention Program. He earned his PhD from Flinders University and has held senior academic positions at multiple institutions, including Professor of Social Work at the University of Southampton (2009-2011), Senior Lecturer at the University of Bath (2007-2009), and various roles at the University of South Australia (2000-2011). Previously, he was Head of the School of Human Services and Social Work at Griffith University from 2011 to 2019, overseeing significant growth and achieving top research rankings. An internationally recognized researcher, O’Leary has led complex projects in Australia, USA, UK, Afghanistan, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Albania, Sudan, Nepal, and Lebanon for clients such as UNICEF, Terre des Hommes, and Islamic Relief Worldwide. His research specializations include domestic and gender-based violence—focusing on perpetrator interventions, integrated, differential, and intersectional responses—child protection, long-term impacts of child sexual abuse especially for men, social work, hope, and support for socially excluded young people across high- and low-income countries.

O’Leary’s work has directly influenced policy and practice, including service on the Australian Government’s Advisory Group for the National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Child Sexual Abuse, membership in the Queensland Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce addressing coercive control, sexual violence in the justice system, and female offenders, and as Expert Academic Advisor to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. He chairs the Clinical Advisory Committee for Survivors and Mates Support Network (SAMSN), a key organization for male child sexual abuse survivors, and is a non-executive board member of DVConnect. Holding adjunct and visiting professorships at Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Central China Normal University, he is Co-Chief Editor of International Social Work (SAGE), doubling its impact factor to 2.2, and Co-Editor of the Contemporary Social Work Studies Series (Routledge). He has secured over $53 million AUD in career competitive research funding. Key publications feature “The effect of child sexual abuse on men: Toward a male sensitive measure” (Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 2017), “Grooming and child sexual abuse in institutional contexts” (2017), and contributions to Child Abuse & Neglect, Journal of Family Violence, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, and British Journal of Social Work. Through the Violence Research and Prevention Program, he oversees the award-winning MATE bystander intervention project.