AASW Social Worker of the Year 2025: Michael Elwan

There are moments in a career that feel like a hinge; where years of quiet labour, community trust, and lived experience leadership gather into something larger. Today I can share one of those moments.

I have been awarded the 2025 AASW National Excellence Award - Social Worker of the Year.

The AASW wrote to let me know that my nomination “rose above an exceptional field of candidates” and that the judging panel recognised the national impact of my work across multicultural mental health, suicide prevention, and lived experience leadership. It is difficult to put into words how it feels to receive the highest individual honour in the profession.

The award acknowledges a long journey that began in Alexandria, Egypt, shaped by caregiving, migration, grief, and rebuilding a life in Australia. It reflects the communities who trusted me, the colleagues who walked beside me, and the lived experience leaders whose courage continues to influence national transformation. It also honours the work of LEXs, which started as a small practice in Perth and has grown into a national platform for culturally grounded, dignified, relational mental-health care.

For now, I simply want to mark the moment. This award is not an endpoint. It is encouragement to keep going; to keep pushing for systems that hold, not harm; and to keep widening the circle for multicultural communities whose voices have been overlooked for far too long.

This is a shared achievement. Thank you for being part of the journey.

LEXs is Michael Elwan's Perth-based practice, working online across Australia. Services include training and workshops, lived experience consultancy, Social Work Supervision, Lived Experience Leadership Supervision, Frontline Supervision, therapy and keynote speaking. Training and workshops can be commissioned for organisational leaders, practitioners and frontline teams, and carers, families and communities. Explore LEXs services.