Christine Bigby
Christine Bigby is an Australian social work academic and disability researcher. She is a Professor of Social Work and Director of the Living with Disability Research Centre at La Trobe University. Her research is focused on community participation, supported decision making, and quality of support for people who have intellectual and cognitive disabilities. Her work has informed policy and practice relating to disability support. In 2025, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia to recognize her contributions.
Early life and education
Bigby has the following degrees:- BA 1980 University of Bradford, Bradford, United Kingdom
- MSW 1990 University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
- PhD 1996 University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Academic career
Bigby is Professor of Social Work at La Trobe University, where she serves as Director of the Living with Disability Research Centre.She was founding editor of the journal Research and Practice in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, a position she held until October 2025. She has held editorial positions for other leading journals including Australian Social Work, Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, Disability and Society, and the Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.
Her leadership roles include chairing the IASSIDD Special Interest Group on Aging and the Comparative Policy and Practice Group, serving on the Australian Research Council’s College of Experts, and serving on the executive committee of the Australasian Society for Intellectual Disability.
Research
Bigby’s research focuses on practice that enhances the engagement, inclusion, and quality of life of adults and older people who have intellectual and cognitive disabilities. She has led longitudinal studies examining supported decision making and the quality of support in group homes for people with intellectual disabilities.Specific areas of her disability research include:
- Social inclusion and community participation: identifying barriers and facilitators to meaningful engagement for people with intellectual disability, aiming to translate research into practice and policy.
- Supported decision making: testing evidence-based frameworks to build supporters’ capability and to inform practice guidelines to support decision making.
- Quality of support in group homes: Bigby’s longitudinal studies examine how staffing, organisational culture, and practice influence outcomes for people with intellectual disabilities who live in supported accommodation.
Her research was cited in relation to the 2023 NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission recommendations for standards for accommodation services.
Her frameworks for supported decision-making have been discussed in independent academic summaries of the Disability Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.
Major news outlets have reported on her work linking supported decision-making research to wider disability rights discussions.
Published works
Bigby has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, books and reports on disability practice and policy, including co-authoring systematic reviews and frameworks for supported decision making and community participation., Scopus lists 241 publications by Bigby, with an h-index of 43.
Books
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Honours and awards
In the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours, Bigby was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for "distinguished service to people with intellectual disabilities, to social welfare and inclusion research, policy and practice, and to tertiary education".She was also elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2025, recognising her sustained international contribution to the social sciences.
She has won the Research award of the Australasian Society for Intellectual Disability four times since 1993.