I’m Dr. Leia Greenslade (she/they) and I’m neurodivergent.

I bring over 18 years experience as a social worker and university educator, My work is shaped by a commitment to dismantling ableist systems, amplifying lived experience, and supporting people to thrive without compromising their identities. As a social worker, my foundational value base is rooted in dignity, inclusion, and the unwavering belief in every person’s right to be heard and respected.

My lived experience of disability means that I know how hard the struggles can be to carry, because I live them. Since my diagnosis of autism over a decade ago, I’ve been advocating for neurodivergent justice. Through co-creating and writing for the seminal blog Respectfully Connected, co-creating Autistic Family Collective (2013-2016), and most recently, writing and convening the disability courses in the Bachelor and Masters of Social Work programs at Griffith University, I’ve worked to create meaningful change in the lives of neurodivergent people.

My practice is grounded in neurodiversity-affirming, trauma-informed, justice-centred care. I offer flexible, inclusive, and deeply respectful support for neurodivergent people, those still figuring it out, and those that support us, to navigate a world that often demands conformity. This includes 1:1 counselling, advocacy work to help you get your needs met, education services to create learning content that is informed by disability justice, and consultancy services to ensure that your research projects, workplace processes and organisational training are genuinely inclusive, justice-based, and aligned with contemporary disability best practices.

I have a PhD, a Bachelor of Social Work (Grad. Entry), a Graduate Diploma in Professional Counselling and a Bachelor of Arts. I am a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) and an affiliate member of the League of Autistic Psychologists and Affirming Colleagues (LOAPAC).

With my formal qualifications and a longstanding history of support, advocacy, education, and research, I can help you name, process, navigate, and challenge barriers in your life. My practice is informed by critical and anti-oppressive social work theories, lived experience, embodied awareness, and a deep unwavering belief in people’s right to live as their whole selves.

Select publications and presentations

Journal articles and book chapters

The ethics of social work practice (book chapter). In Social Work the Shadow of the Law (in publication).

Turn it and turn it again: The updated Inclusive Model of Ethical Decision-making. Ethics & Social Welfare. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17496535.2025.2483668

Social Workers Experiences of Covert Workplace Activism: Resistance from the frontier. Australian Social Work. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0312407X.2014.940360

Enhancing environmental wellbeing: What social workers can learn from hybrid business activities. International Social Work. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00208728221082000

Social work and the natural environment: Embedding content across curricula. Australian Social Work. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0312407X.2018.1447588

Taking the wheel: Put yourself in the driver's seat of your field placement experience (book chapter). In  The field placement survival guide.

Podcast:

Closet activists and covert workplace activities, PODSOCS, Episode 71.

Conference Presentations:

Not in our Name: Jewish Australians  speak up. Anti-racism Hallmark Research Initiative.

Re-thinking grading. ADCET Universal Design for learning symposium.

Social work activism: Resistance from the frontier. AASW QLD and NQLD Conference.

Consultancy Reports:

To make the invisible visible: Consulting with children. Report to the Productivity Commission.          https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/childhood/report/ecec-griffith.pdf

Regarding the investigation into possible decriminalisation and regulation of altruistic surrogacy in Queensland. Australian Association of Social Workers. https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/com/IASC-D51B/IDRASQ-FD11/submissions/00000077.pdf