Kris LaVenia

My research investigates how leaders and helping professionals create the relational conditions that enable individuals and communities to learn, heal, belong, and flourish, particularly in contexts of adversity and change. Drawing on educational leadership, counselling, and emerging perspectives from embodiment science, I examine how communication, compassion, emotion regulation, co-regulation, and embodied relational practice shape learning, wellbeing, and organisational change. My perspective is informed by both professional training and practice as a counsellor and scholarship in educational leadership, providing an interdisciplinary lens for understanding how leaders and helping professionals cultivate relational environments that support individuals, organisations, and communities. I have a particular interest in supporting educators, children and young people, families, and communities experiencing vulnerability or marginalisation.

Grounded in an interdisciplinary perspective, my research spans educational leadership, school mental health and wellbeing, trauma-informed practice, and the emotional and relational dimensions of leadership. Current projects explore compassionate leadership, emotional labour, embodied relational practice, and leadership approaches that strengthen psychological safety, belonging, trust, and collective capacity within educational and helping organisations. Across this work, I seek to bridge theory and practice by generating research that informs leadership development, professional learning, organisational improvement, and the implementation of evidence-informed practices that support learning and wellbeing.

I welcome the opportunity to supervise postgraduate students whose interests align with educational leadership, school mental health and wellbeing, trauma-informed practice, compassionate leadership, embodiment science, emotion regulation, emotional labour, counselling-informed leadership, and organisational change. I enjoy working with students across qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods research and am particularly interested in projects that centre the experiences and voices of practitioners, children and young people, families, and communities.