Péta Phelan teaches across First Nations Health, Mental Health Practice, and Rehabilitation Counselling, with a pedagogical approach centred on culturally grounded, strengths-based, and critically reflexive learning. Her teaching is shaped by decolonising methodologies, intersectional analysis, and her professional background as an allied health practitioner.

She brings extensive experience in supporting diverse learner cohorts, particularly students with intersecting identities, and is committed to creating inclusive, accountable, and transformative educational environments. Her teaching practice emphasises relationality, safety, evidence-informed practice, and the integration of Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing in curriculum and assessment.

She also contributes to supervision of student projects and provides mentorship to emerging scholars interested in Indigenous health, LGBTIQA+ wellbeing, disability, and social justice-focused practice.

Péta’s research focuses on Indigenous social and emotional wellbeing, with particular attention to queer, gender diverse, and disability communities. Her work explores the intersectional lived experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the impacts of coloniality on health and justice systems, and the development of culturally grounded, community-led approaches to wellbeing.

Her scholarship engages anticolonial/decolonising, feminist, and ecological theories, and she is recognised for developing innovative Indigenous research methodologies, including her MUSHROOMS method. She has published across high-impact journals and contributes regularly to national conferences and academic dialogues.

Her current projects include work on Indigenous wellbeing particularly in queer and disability spaces, intersectional health practice, and embedding Indigenous understandings across health curricula. She is also advancing research that privileges Indigenous knowledge systems within social work, allied health, and community practice contexts.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4528-0048

Journal Papers:

Phelan, P., Meyers, O., Mcalear, S., Evans, J., Menzel, K., & Bennett, B. (2024). Enhancing Equity in Clinical Social Work Education: Supporting Indigenous Queer and Gender Diverse Students and Researchers'. Clinical Social Work Journal, 1-15. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10615-024-00938-x

Phelan, P. (2023). Indigenous LGBTIQA+ Existences, Safety, & Wellbeing as a Critical Component of Truth and Justice Commissions in Australia. Journal of Global Indigeneity, 7(2), 1–16. https://www.journalofglobalindigeneity.com/article/84130-Indigenous-lgbtiqa-existences-safety-wellbeing-as-a-critical-component-of-truth-and-justice-commissions-in-Australia

Phelan, P. (2023). ‘Talkin'up’ to the Academic Book Review following Joshua St. Pierre's Cheap Talk: Disability and the Politics of Communication. Somatechnics, 13(3), 274 - 280. https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/soma.2023.0415

Phelan, P., & Oxley, R. (2021). Understanding the social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal LGBTIQ (SB)+ youth in Victoria’s youth detention. Social Inclusion, 9(2), 18-29. https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/3770

Eades, S., Eades, F., McCaullay, D., Nelson, L., Phelan, P., & Stanley, F. (2020). Australia's First Nations' response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lancet, 396(10246), 237-238. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31545-2/fulltext#articleInformation

Book Chapters:

Phelan, P. (2025). Unearthing and Honouring Fungi Wisdom: Exploring Indigenous Research Methods Through MUSHROOMS. In: Bennett, B., Menzel, K. (eds) Indigenous Research Knowledges and Their Place in the Academy. Indigenous-Settler Relations in Australia and the World, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-92703-4_15

Bennett, B., & Phelan, P. (2025). Radical reflection plus radical transformation equals revolutionary social work. In Abolition in Social Work and Human Services. Bristol, UK: Policy Press. https://doi.org/10.51952/9781447374350.ch005

Phelan, P., & Bennett, B. (2024). Privileging Indigenous knowledge and wisdom as Feminist social work practitioners. In The Routledge International Handbook of Feminisms in Social Work (pp. 55-67). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003317371-7/privileging-indigenous-knowledge-wisdom-feminist-social-work-practitioners-p%C3%A9ta-phelan-bindi-bennett

Phelan, P. (2021). Working with Aboriginal LGBTIQ+ people. In B. Bennett (Ed.), Aboriginal fields of practice (pp. 26 - 48). London: Red Globe Press.

Conference Presentations:

Phelan, P. (2025, June 4). Navigating Intersectional Practice in Rehabilitation Counselling: Empowering Service Collaborators with Intersecting Minoritised Identities [Oral Presentation]. Australian Society of Rehabilitation Counsellors (ASORC) National Conference.

Phelan, P. (2024, September 23 – 24). Unearthing and Honouring Fungi Wisdom: Indigenous and Anti-Colonial Research Methods through MUSHROOMS[Oral Presentation]. Gender, Sex, and Sexualities Conference. University of Adelaide, Adelaide

Phelan, P. (2022, December 5). Indigenous LGBTIQA+ Existences, Safety, & Wellbeing as a Critical Component of Truth and Justice Commissions in Australia [Oral Presentation].'What Matters: Indigenous LGBTIQ+ Pasts, Presents and Futures’ Conference. Western Sydney University, Sydney.

Phelan, P. (2021, April). Understanding the Social and Emotional Wellbeing of Aboriginal LGBTIQ (SB)+ Youth in Victoria’s Youth Detention [Journal Issue Panel]. Cogitatio’s International Release of Social Inclusion (Vl.9, Iss.2), International.

Phelan, P. (2020, October). Suicide Prevention Strategies at Work in Aboriginal Communities [Oral Presentation]. Healthy Minds Suicide Prevention Forum, Bendigo, Victoria.

Phelan, P. (2019, October). Women’s Mental Health Whilst Doing Postgraduate Studies [Workshop]. National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Postgraduate Association, Melbourne, Victoria.

Phelan, P. (2019, June). Elevating Intersectional Identity Narratives to Advance Indigenous Health and Wellbeing [Oral Presentation].Lowitja Institute National Conference, Darwin, Northern Territory.