Faculty & Staff

Alishau is passionate about preparing emerging professionals to step into their fields with purpose, applied knowledge, a strong sense of the difference they want to make. With over a decade of experience in university teaching and social work practice in forensic settings, she enjoys bringing real-world examples into the classroom.

Her own path into academia was shaped by decades practice, community work, and a genuine curiosity about how people and systems can amplify their strengths. As a clinical social worker, she worked in prisons, halfway homes, and community-based justice organizations, providing counselling and assisting marginalized individuals to navigate the systems and services available to them. These experiences motivated her to examine how systems could create better opportunities for people to rebuild their lives. Her dissertation research brought these ideas together to establish employment pathways for women through a merger of social enterprise and community justice nonprofit structures.

Alishau is the Principal Investigator on a research project titled Forging Health-Promoting Frameworks for Post-Secondary Campuses. This project strives to strengthen campus systems from the inside out. She is also an active writer and speaker, sharing her research and ideas through peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, and academic conferences. At Mount Royal University, she is one of the Social Work Simulation Point-Persons and a member of the Child, Youth and Family Research Collective; she is also an Academic Mentor for the Alliance against Violence and Adversity. She believes that the university should be in conversation with the communities around it, because the best resolutions rarely come from one place. Alishau enjoys bringing creativity and fresh thinking intosocial work, while keeping communities at the centre of every conversation. She believes we can honourwhat we have learned while carrying forward the courage to create something new.

Areas of Instruction

• Counselling Skills
• Violence Across the Lifespan
• Anti-Oppressive Practice in Social Work
• Social Work Assessment and Documentation
• Advanced Social Work Skills in Child Intervention

Areas of Scholarship

• Sustainable approaches for violence prevention and institutional change, with a focus on intimate
• partner violence and child abuse.
• Social innovation, social enterprise, and entrepreneurial approaches to social change.
• Trauma-informed and simulation-based teaching

Selected Publications 

Diebold, A, Chen, S., Jarvis, L. (2024). Charting the path to collective wellbeing: Key findings from Laurier's task force survey. Wilfrid Laurier University – Provost’s Office.

Dhembo, E., Akesson, B., & Diebold, A. (2024). Social service reform, education, and the professionalization of social work: The case of child protection services in Albania. In R. Baikady (Ed.), Oxford handbook of power, politics and social work. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Diebold, A., Grand, D., Berrouard, M., Pearson, S. (2021). Deconstructing the romanticization of solidarity: Reflections on social work performativity and resistance during COVID-19. Intersectionalities: A Global Journal of Social Work Analysis, Research, Polity, and Practice, 9(1), 199-207.

Selected Presentations

Diebold, A. (2025, May). Adapting research pedagogy: Leveraging disruptions for positive change. [Paper Presentation]. 16th Annual University of Waterloo Teaching and Learning Conference, Waterloo, Ontario. 

Diebold, A. (2025, October). Art in action: Redefining research through community practices. [Paper Presentation]. 21st International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry. Virtual Conference.

Diebold, A. (2024, June). Inclusivity and equity in action: Transforming Ontario's economy through combining community justice and social enterprise programs. CASWE-ACFTS 2024 Conference, Montreal, Ontario.

Diebold, A. (2024, May). Creating pathways beyond conviction: An arts-based analysis integrating community justice and social enterprise initiatives to transform career wayfinding for criminalized women. [Paper Presentation]. International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, Virtual Conference.

Relevant Community Service

• Collaborating with organizations on violence prevention programs and support services.
• Supporting or developing social enterprises empowering community members.
• Volunteering or serving on boards for nonprofits and advocacy groups.
• Providing mentorship to students and emerging professionals.