This paper explores the workplace experiences of 120 gay men, lesbians, and transgender people who were employed as teachers, academics, and educators. The data, drawn from a larger collaborative research project, explored the workplace experiences of 900 gay men, lesbians, and transgender people. Homophobic harassment and treatment were widespread amongst the lesbian, gay men, and transgender teachers, academics, and educators. The paper will utilize the stories of those who experienced discrimination to explicate the issues confronting gay men, lesbians, and transgender people who work in the education system.

• Summary: This article identifies important challenges facing social work supervision as a result of the social, political and economic changes that have characterized the last two decades in most Western countries. In response a re-positioning of the critical tradition in the scholarship and practice of social work has been proffered by several authors (for example, Allan et al., 2003; Dominelli, 2002) as a means of addressing and counteracting the more negative challenges facing social work emanating from these changes. We argue that this critical re-positioning can also be applied to similar challenges facing practice supervision. • Findings: As the social work landscape has to contend with a more conservative and fiscally restrictive environment, so too has practice supervision become more focused on efficiency, accountability and worker performance often at the expense of professional and practice development. In addition, current research has identified a crisis in the probity of practice supervision where many practitioners cite disillusionment and despair, as well as lack of opportunity to stop and critically reflect on practice situations as another challenge in this changed climate. • Application: As a significant site of practice, a critically informed supervision praxis has the potential to emerge as a site for modelling social change strategies associated with the critical social work tradition.

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Over the past three decades the issue of domestic violence in heterosexual relationships has been at the forefront of feminist activism and scholarship in the western world. Until recently there has been a reticence to explore women's violence, including violence in lesbian relationships. In this article I outline research undertaken in Australia on domestic violence in lesbian relationships, which involved interviews with 21 lesbians who identified as survivors of domestic violence. I summarize the findings of the research in order to demonstrate how the heterogeneity of lesbians' experiences poses challenges to practitioners and policy makers in health and human services to develop policy and practice that can take into account, and respond to, the different needs and interests of lesbians.

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