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Biography

Graeme Stuart is an early career researcher with extensive experience in community work and social change movements. Although he completed his PhD in 2003, until 2008 he worked as a community worker rather than as an academic. He began at the Family Action in May 2003, where he worked with the Caravan Project for nearly 5 years before moving into his current academic position. His current research and teaching focuses on community engagement, asset-based community development and strengths based practice such as:

• Focus group with family and community workers about their experience using strengths-based assessment
• Focus group with family and community workers about the challenges involved in engaging Aboriginal fathers and successful strategies
• Interviews with fathers working at Port Stephens Council about their thoughts about child-friendly communities and how being a father has impacted on their work
• The evaluation of Snak & Rap, a youth engagement project through Port Stephens Council
• The evaluation of Partners in Parenting, a parenting mentoring program using the setting of Family Day Care
• The evaluation of SNUG (Special Needs Unlimited Group), camps for children with disabilities and their families, who are living in rural NSW.

As a community worker with the Family Action Centre he has worked with caravan park communities on a range of projects, helped facilitate fathering workshop with Aboriginal men in prison, and facilitated a variety of workshops and forums for family and community workers. While working with the Caravan Project he also undertook a range of practice based research projects including:

• What can we do? Communities responding to violence, which explored how people living in caravan parks and Indigenous communities could respond appropriately when they were aware of domestic and family violence.
• Stepping Stones: From caravan park to school, an action research project investigating strategies to improve the transition to, and connection with, school for children living in caravan parks.
• Supporting residents of caravan parks: Principles of promising practice, which involved a two day national best practice forum from which nine principles, and associated implications for practice, were developed.
• Disaster planning in park communities, an action research project exploring the impact of the 2007 June Long Weekend storms on park residents and strategies for caravan parks and manufactured home villages to be better prepared for future adverse events.

Graeme is also the secretary of Transition Newcastle and the president of the Lambton Public School Parents and Citizens Association.

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Newcastle, 2003
• Master of Letters (Peace Studies), University of New England, 1995
• Bachelor of Social Sciences (Welfare Studies), University of Newcastle, 1993
• Bachelor of Music, University of Melbourne, 1986

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Research

Research keywords

• Asset-based community development
• Community engagement
• Strengths-based practice

Research expertise

Graeme Stuart's fields of research include working with marginalised communities, strength-based practice, youth work, engaging communities and asset-based community development. He has specialised in practice-based research that grows out of community based programs and concerns. He has linked theories of nonviolence and strength-based practices in working with marginalised sections of the community.

Languages

• English

Fields of Research

Description (Code)	%
Social Work Not Elsewhere Classified(160799)	35
Studies In Human Society Not Elsewhere Classified(169999)	35
Linguistics Not Elsewhere Classified(200499)	30

Centres and Groups

Centre

• Family Action Centre

Invitations

Supporting Caravan Park Residents: A Best Practice Forum Family Action Centre, Australia (Paper presented at a best practice forum)

2006

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Administrative

Administrative expertise

Graeme Stuart has been team leader and practitioner/researcher at the Family Action Centre since 2003. He has developed considerable expertise administering research and community projects and in professional development about linking theory to practice through staff development and action research through the Family Action Centre as well as through his private consultancies. The projects Graeme lead brought in considerable recurrent funding to the Family Action Centre and attracted research funding from external sources.

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Teaching

Teaching keywords

• Asset-based community development
• Community engagement
• Strengths-based practice

Teaching expertise

Graeme has taught in a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate courses in social work, social science and health sciences. Course include Community engagement: Cross disciplinary perspective; Capacity building in the human services; Current trends in human service delivery; Schools, families and communities; Youth studies and Community administration. In the TAFE sector he has taught in the community welfare and youth work courses.