Dr Lisa Stafford is a social scientist, social/community planner and human geographer with 20 years’ experience in the field of disability and inclusion practice and policy with specific focus on the social-spatial needs of children, young people and their families. Lisa also identifies as a chronically-ill disabled academic. Lisa is also the associate program lead of Ecologies of Justice in Centre for Justice QUT https://www.qut.edu.au/law/research/centre-for-justice
Lisa’s expertise is in participation and inclusive communities, and was recently awarded the highly competitive Australian Research Council – DECRA Fellowship 2019 in Inclusive community planning for people with disabilities in regional areas https://www.planninginclusivecommunities.com/
Her other strengths include the design and use of emancipatory creative participatory methods that enable all people, in particular children and people with complex communication needs, to be heard in research and engagement.
In 2018 alone she was awarded nearly half a million dollars in research funding:
- 2018 – $110,000 grant– Empowering Children’s Voices in services research project with UnitingCare – Lead CI
- 2018 – $383,960.00 – ARC DECRA 2019 – DE190101512 – category 1. Title: Inclusive community planning for people with disabilities in regional areas.
In addition to her work as an academic, Dr Stafford has worked in practitioner, management and director roles in government and non-government organisations. Dr Stafford’s work has included the development and management of All Abilities Playground projects across Queensland.
Research Specialities: Rights-based inclusive research approaches, interpretative policy analysis, phenomenology, person-environment interaction studies (environmental psychology, systems).
Research Interests:
- Inclusive Communities and Social-Spatial Justice. Interested in creating inclusion and equality through understanding the complexity of social and spatial injustices. Specific areas of interest: neighbourhoods and regional centres, mobility studies, inclusive play spaces, and regional perspectives. Interested in Spatial Justice theorising, Ableism and Body-space politics.
- Participation. Interest in understanding the meaning of participation and the journey (routines and processes) to achieve genuine participation for people with disabilities. Specific interest is in children and young people with complex needs, and processes and practices for empowering their “voice”. Critical Disability Theory, Phenomenology, Interactional models and Rights-based inclusive approaches are common frames to examine participation.
- Transition of Young people with disabilities. Interested in the transitional journey from education to work for young adults with disabilities. This includes taking a systems approach to understanding the complex policy/programmatic, structural inequality, social-cultural, and geographical influences that shape experiences and participation outcomes.
This information has been contributed by Dr Lisa Stafford.
