Dr. Kathryn Daley
Details
College: School of GUSS
Department: School of GUSS
Campus: City Campus Australia
kathryn.daley@rmit.edu.au
ORCID: 0000-0003-4295-0533
Open to
- Masters Research or PhD student supervision
- Industry Projects
- Collaborative projects
- Membership of an advisory committee
- Media enquiries
About
Dr Kathryn Daley is the Assistant Associate Dean of Social Research and Policy Studies. She was previously the Associate Director of the Social Equity Research Centre and theme lead of the Homelessness and Housing Insecurity research program.
Kathryn was trained in psychology and social science. She is an academic with a background as a practitioner, having worked in direct service provision and in research and policy in the non-for-profit sector. Her work is focused on improving the wellbeing of people living on the margins, particularly children and young people.
Kathryn enjoys teaching, and is responsible for courses in youth work, policy, research design, methods and ethics.
Kathryn has held various leadership roles in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies and is a current member of the Human Research Ethics Committee.
Dr Daley is heavily involved in the praxis between research and industry. She is Chair of the board of Youth Workers Australia and also a member of the board of the Professional Association of Lecturers in Youth and Community Work (Australia). She held a ministerial appointment to the Women's Correctional Services Advisory Committee (2015-2025), and was on the working advisory group for the update to the Victorian Code of Youth Work Ethics. Kathyn was a member of the forensic mental health services recommisssioning project and has provided consultation for the development of the the Victorian Youth AOD Strategy (2025-2035). She is a member of the Victorian Youth Affairs Council and also the Australian Youth Affairs Coalition.
Daley is an award-winning academic known for her research translation, notably having won the 2024 Vice-Chancellor's Award for Research Impact and Engagement and in 2025 was awarded the RMIT University Media Star of the Year Award.
UN sustainable development goals
- 1 No Poverty
- 3 Good Health and Well Being
- 5 Gender Equality
- 10 Reduced Inequalities
Supervisor projects
- Social Equity Research Centre Homelessness and Housing Insecurity industry scholarship
- 19 Dec 2025
- Women, children and young people's experiences in family violence refuges: how systemic realities shape everyday lives and service responses
- 6 Feb 2025
- Making, Unmaking, and Remaking Home in Social and Affordable Mixed-Tenure Community Housing
- 4 Jul 2024
- Developing An Intersectional Feminist Trauma- And Violence-Informed Practice Framework for Mental Health Services For Women In Sex Work
- 2 Jun 2021
- Men Feeling Differently: Masculinity, Normativity, and the Prevention of Gendered Violence
- 13 Mar 2020
- At the Borders: Migrant Women's Experiences of Family Violence and Help-Seeking in Australia
- 1 Mar 2017
Teaching interests
Kathryn enjoys teaching the next generation of youth workers and other welfare professionals, and teaches courses in alcohol and other drug interventions, advanced youth work practice, youth work ethics, and a course on critical understandings of youth ‘wellbeing’. Kathryn also has extensive experience teaching research design and methods from undergraduate through to PhD.
She is a qualified and experienced movement teacher and practitioner (Dance, Yoga and Pilates) and is incresingly transferring these skills to youth work students to enable them to teach self-regulation and mindfulness strategies to young people experiencing complex trauma.
Research interests
Kathryn’s current work is focused on:
- Patterns of service use in homelessness services;
- Predictive patterns of Adverse Childhood Experience;
- Research and practice ethics,
- Good practice guidelines for youth workers applying a trauma-informed approach.
She has previously focused on gender, substance abuse and self-injury, among other areas.
