Hello, and welcome to the Social Change Agency!
I am available on a consultancy basis and would be delighted to discuss possibilities for supporting your school or organisation.
Visit the Services page for more information, and the Resources section for professional learning and teaching resources. Take the links at the bottom of this page for more information about some of my previous and current roles.
I am currently focused on providing professional development for Respectful Relationships Education in Queensland schools. Please contact me at delaneymt@gmail.com to arrange a complimentary introductory presentation for your school or organisation staff or leadership team.
* What is ‘RRE’? Where does it fit and what does it look like in the classroom? Using your critical social lens for curriculum design and adaptation.
* Pedagogy for change – developing a critical yet compassionate, creative, trauma-informed and healing-centred approach. Working with boys and young men. Educators and students as change agents.
I have over thirty years’ diverse experience including leading roles in research, design, development and implementation of strategies, resources and programs for gender equity, the prevention of violence against women, and respectful relationships education in Queensland, nationally, and recently in Victoria.
I have worked across community, education and government organisations as a teacher, teacher educator, policy and project officer, researcher, academic, private consultant, community worker, activist and organiser. Through these wide-ranging experiences I have developed a comprehensive knowledge and resource base for enriching learning and outcomes through pedagogy, curriculum, policy and leadership, and I have fostered close and ongoing working relationships with key stakeholders at local, state and national levels. I am familiar with national and Queensland prevention policy, program developments and publications, including the Prevent. Support. Believe. Framework and the work related to the Third Action Plan of the Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Strategy.
Relevant experience includes:
- Teaching intermittently in Queensland primary schools from 1984 until 2016;
- Research on ‘Changing the story of gendered violence, new educative approaches’ with Professor Amanda Keddie
- Evaluation of the implementation and outcomes of the Our Watch Respectful Relationships Education in Primary Schools pilot project 2018 – 2019;
- Design and facilitation of the Qeensland pilot workshops with Dr. Jenny Nayler in collaboration with the Our Watch and DoE team;
- Training and support for the DET Victoria Respectful Relationships staff, and for community workers to support RRE in schools, as the Prevention of Violence Against Women Specialist: Capability Building for the Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria 2018-2020;
- Design and development of training resources for practitioners and organisations to be feminist, trauma-informed and healing-centred, drawing on the work of the Healing Foundation, ANROWS and Our Watch, as Community Development and Education Officer for Women’s Health Queensland in 2020
- Review and improvement of the facilitator training and resourcing for the ‘All Schools Sexuality and Relationships Education’ and design of RRE workshops for True Relationships and Sexual Health in 2017;
- Reviews of the Queensland and Victorian respectful relationships curricula for Our Watch in 2017;
- Various university research activities in the area including with leading respectful relationships education researchers, Professor Amanda Keddie and Associate Professor Debbie Ollis.
- Collaborative design and delivery of national leadership training workshops and the development of Gender and Education Guidelines for schools for the Association of Women Educators Leading Social Change
- Co-convening the education stream and presenting on Violence Prevention in Education: A Systems View at the Prevalent and Preventable International Conference on Violence Against Women, AWAVA and Our Watch, 2016
- Management of a school cluster implementation of the national Success for Boys project (2006) including professional learning activities, a conference for the staff of 6 schools, supported local action research, and reporting on outcomes.
Connect with me
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The Community of Practice has been invaluable for me – the connection, conversation, sharing of resources – BRILLIANT! I really had to fight, advocate to come here as my role is only 15 hours – SO VALUABLE. Sharing of ideas has helped me to expand my research and resources and reflect on what I do and how I can improve that and align that with other organisation or raise further awareness within my own organisation.
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Maria’s decades of critical analysis, program development and education in relation to violence prevention, gender education and the broader field of social justice and her roles as researcher, educator and consultant on numerous programs within Queensland, nationally and beyond. Her position as Senior Project Officer for the national Safe and Supportive Schools Communities project and Bullying. No way! website in particular ensured that these initiatives were at the cutting edge in Australia and internationally in terms of their understanding and nuanced articulation of the social constructions of bullying and violence and the intersection of these with existing psychological perspectives. She makes an important, much needed contribution to Australian education and social justice. Bravo!
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Maria has a passion for enhancing critical understandings about social justice in leadership and a deep interest in developing and supporting professional learning combined with a vibrant community-of-inquiry approach across a range of research areas… challenging us to consider how things are, and how they could be improved. It is clear that it would be unusual to see such a combination replicated.
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Maria provides a unique and outstanding service in this regard–she connects with the specific problems confronting your school and works with your school community to create holistic and integrated responses that are sustainable and will generate more respectful, peaceful and socially just relations in your school.
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This is a critical service located within a framework that rejects deficit understandings of children and ensures that schools undertake positive and sustainable responses. Maria has extensive experience in facilitating professional learning and in working closely with schools making her an ideal person to support teachers to foster positive identities and relationships, and to address bullying and violence.
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This is a comprehensive, user-friendly and extremely valuable learning guide and resource treasure e-chest. I’d certainly recommend it for early career educators but also for those of use who have been working in the area for a long time. We may be feeling a little jaded, tired, or just not up-to-date with all the wonderful stuff out there. How refreshing and exciting to find all these significant projects, publications and resources readily at hand. What a wonderful resource! Thanks!
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Maria Delaney is a passionate advocate for equality, justice and inclusion in education. Her assistance with our submission to ACARA about diversity in the Australian curriculum was of a very high quality. Maria has a very important contribution to make in this area.
Current activities:
- Senior Education Officer – Body Safety Australia – delivering Professional Development workshops for educators and Parent/Carer information sessions, on child safety and protection, gender diversity and equity, and respectful relationships education
- PhD researcher investigating social justice policy agency with/in the education bureaucracy
- Research Fellow – Deakin University – Changing the story of gendered violence, new educative approaches; Masculinities and social cohesion – a study of programs for young men; Understanding and addressing resistance and backlash to gender equality reform
- Research Officer – Edith Cowan, Western Sydney and RMIT Universities – Everyday Sexisms in Australian Universities
Previous roles:
- Community Development and Education Officer – Women’s Health Queensland
- Prevention of Violence Against Women Specialist: Capability Building – Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria
- Casual Academic and Research Assistant – University of Queensland, Griffith University, Queensland University of Technology
- Project Officer Respectful Relationships Education, True Relationships and Reproductive Health
- Organiser of the Association of Women Educators biennial national conference Reclaiming Feminism: EnGendering Change
- Editor of the Association of Women Educators journal, Redress
- Project Developer and Manager for the Graduate Teaching Assistant Program in the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology (EAIT), University of Queensland
- Project Manager for the AWE Leading Social Change and White Ribbon Day Every Day projects
- Senior Project Officer for the national Safe and Supportive School Communities (SSSC) project
- Content developer for the SSSC Bullying. No Way! website
- Project Manager for a school cluster implementation of the Federal Government’s Success for Boys Professional Learning Program
- Project Officer in the Education Queensland Gender Equity Unit
- Board Member and Workshop Facilitator for the Eating Disorders Association of Queensland
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