About Avesta Advisory
Avesta Advisory is a specialist workforce and systems reform consultancy focused on strengthening trauma-informed and intersectional practice in refugee, multicultural and LGBTIQA+ contexts.
We support organisations to move beyond policy statements and awareness-based inclusion toward structured, accountable and operational implementation.
Our work integrates lived experience insight, frontline service knowledge and institutional systems analysis to reduce risk, strengthen safeguarding and build sustainable workforce capability.
Engagements are practical, time-bound and outcomes-focused, prioritising clarity, implementation and long-term reform over symbolic inclusion.
Why Avesta Advisory Was Founded
Having navigated settlement and protection systems personally and later worked within them professionally, the founder recognised that meaningful change required more than awareness training. It required structured reform at both operational and systems levels.
Avesta Advisory was established in response to a persistent gap between institutional intent and lived reality.
Across health, settlement and community systems, organisations often express commitment to inclusion and protection, yet lack the structural literacy required to operate safely in contexts shaped by forced displacement, identity risk and cultural complexity.
Generic approaches frequently overlook layered trauma, migration status and community dynamics. As a result, support becomes fragmented, safeguarding gaps emerge and individuals are left to navigate systems that were not designed with their realities in mind.
Avesta Advisory exists to address this gap by translating lived experience into practical standards, risk-informed decision-making and accountable implementation across sectors. The aim is to strengthen workforce capability and institutional alignment in ways that extend beyond individual programs or isolated initiatives.
The focus is systemic alignment: building consistent standards that promote safety, inclusion and continuity wherever LGBTIQA+ forcibly displaced people engage with services.
Meet the Consultant
Avesta Advisory is led by Saina Avesta, a trauma-informed practice specialist and systems reform consultant with extensive experience across refugee, settlement and community service systems.
Saina is a trans woman with a refugee background, bringing lived expertise alongside professional credibility. After years in protracted uncertainty in Turkey, she resettled in Australia independently and engaged with settlement and protection systems as both client and advocate. She later worked professionally across refugee settlement, trauma-informed practice and workforce development roles, combining lived insight with operational and institutional knowledge.
Her leadership within queer refugee and migrant communities, alongside collaboration with frontline teams and government-funded services, positions her as a trusted bridge between community realities and organisational systems.
Saina’s work focuses on identifying where systems unintentionally cause harm, translating lived experience into practical institutional responses and strengthening safeguarding, accountability and implementation standards through an intersectional lens.
She is actively engaged in national and international human rights advocacy, including participation in the Global Refugee Forum and collaboration with refugee protection networks to amplify the voices of LGBTQ+ refugees and other marginalised communities.
Selected Contributions
Delivered a plenary statement as part of the Forcibly Displaced People Network (FDPN) delegation, drawing on lived experience to highlight the realities faced by LGBTIQA+ refugees. The statement called for concrete action to remove structural barriers, reject unsafe return policies, and support refugee-led organisations as equal partners in protection and resettlement.
→ Watch the full session
Global Refugee Forum Progress Review 2025, Geneva
Profile Feature, QPASTT
Featured by QPASTT ahead of the Culture of Care: Multicultural Health Symposium (Brisbane, 2023), sharing my lived experience as a queer refugee and the context behind my work. This piece was published in preparation for a joint presentation on the pre-arrival and settlement experiences of LGBTIQ+ refugees in Australia.
Queer Migrant Project Manual (LGBTI Legal Service)
Co-created the Queer Migrant Project Manual with LGBTI Legal Service, a best-practice resource addressing domestic and family violence in the context of LGBTQ+ migrants, refugees, and people seeking asylum in Queensland. Developed with a Peer Advisory Group, the manual centres lived experience and provides practical guidance for more inclusive, trauma-informed, and culturally responsive responses to DFV.
Our Approach
Intersectional Analysis
We examine how gender, displacement, culture and structural exclusion interact within service systems, not as isolated factors but as layered realities shaping risk and access.
Avesta Advisory approaches reform with disciplined structure and clear accountability. The work is grounded in both community realities and institutional responsibility, recognising that sustainable inclusion requires more than intention. It requires operational clarity, risk awareness and consistent implementation across systems.
Our engagements are guided by the following principles:
Practical Risk Awareness
We identify operational risk points in frontline practice and strengthen trauma-informed decision-making to prevent unintended harm.
Strengthening Safeguarding
We reinforce duty-of-care, confidentiality and accountability mechanisms across workforce and leadership levels.
Lived Experience Translation
We translate community knowledge and lived realities into structured standards and implementable organisational responses.
Sustainable Outcomes
We focus on long-term capability, ensuring reform extends beyond one-off training into measurable and consistent practice.
