Rahim Thawer

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Bio

Rahim Thawer is a clinical leader, educator, and organizational consultant with over 15 years of experience across mental health systems, higher education, and nonprofit sectors. His work focuses on strengthening clinical supervision, guiding organizational change, and building trauma-informed systems that are both ethically grounded and operationally sustainable.

He has led program design and clinical strategy across healthcare and community settings, including oversight of supervision models, intake systems, and team development processes serving LGBTQ+, newcomer, and HIV-affected communities. In parallel, he provides external consultation to organizations navigating growth, burnout, and post-conflict repair, with an emphasis on emotionally attuned leadership and accountable team culture.

Rahim teaches in undergraduate and graduate-level social work and has developed curriculum across multiple institutions in Canada and the United States. His pedagogical work integrates clinical rigor with applied frameworks for equity, supervision, and organizational functioning. Nearly half of his professional practice is dedicated to clinical supervision and consultation, supporting clinicians and leaders in managing complexity, countertransference, and team dynamics.

His writing and public scholarship focus on clinical ethics, systems thinking, and the emotional life of organizations. He is the author of several forthcoming books on psychotherapy practice and queer mental health, and is currently completing a Doctor of Social Work with a focus on psychoanalytic approaches to leadership and organizational life.

Facilitator and Speaker

Whether in a classroom or therapy consulting room, he strives to operate from a harm reduction, sex-positive, anti-oppressive and trauma-informed approach. This is complemented by his vast public speaking portfolio, which is both thematically and regionally diverse, spanning from Canada (Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Vancouver) to the US (New York, Austin, Atlanta, Lexington, Washington) to the United Kingdom (London, Glasgow) and South Africa (Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban).

Academia

Rahim is currently enrolled in the Doctor of Social Work program at The University of Alabama (2024-2027). Concurrently, he is on a three-year teaching contract as an Instructor in the School of Social Work in the same department. Rahim has taught as a post-secondary lecturer at George Brown College, Centennial College, Toronto Metropolitan University, St Jerome’s University (at the University of Waterloo), and the University of Toronto. He developed the curriculum for several courses in Centennial College’s Addiction and Mental Health Worker Program (AMHW) before its launch in Fall 2016. He was appointed as a Fellow at the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto in 2021 for his contributions to the field of sexuality. Rahim was also appointed as an International Visiting Scholar with the South African College of Applied Psychology (SACAP) for the 2021-2022 academic year.

Sex Therapy  

Rahim developed and taught SMF 208 Introduction to Systemic Therapies and Anti-Oppressive Practice and SMF 309 Sex Therapy in the Department of Sexuality, Marriages and Family (SMF) Studies at St. Jerome’s University at the University of Waterloo. He’s been a keynote speaker at a number of sexuality and sexual wellbeing conferences and is a Fellow at the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto. He completed the Professional Certificate in Psychosexual Therapy (2024) offered by the Contemporary Institute of Clinical Sexology (CICS) based in the UK.

Clinical Supervision

Nearly half of Rahim’s clinical practice has evolved into clinical supervision and consultation work. He has supervised graduate students from Ontario’s MSW and MA/MEd programs. He has provided consultations to provider teams in various settings within education, child welfare, housing/shelter and health service sectors. His relevant training in clinical supervision includes completion of the following training programs: The Supervisory Relationship (2022/2023), Gestalt Institute of Toronto; Clinical Supervision (2021), Institute for Self-in-Relationship Psychotherapy; Clinical Social Work Supervision (2017), University of Calgary.

Resource Development and Innovation

Community and research-based nonprofit organizations have hired Rahim to develop key resources and curricula that combine his clinical expertise and population-based knowledge. Over the years, he’s developed a nuanced guide for newcomer/immigrant GBTQ guys (2010), a 2SLGBTQ+ youth mental health group curriculum (2021), a mental health and system navigation guide for international students who are gender and sexual minorities (2022); and a group curriculum for GBTQ guys that are 50+ who are exploring connection in the age of online apps. In Rahim’s portfolio, resource and program development remain a strong passion and skill set.

Organizational Development and Training

Rahim has largely worked in community-based and healthcare settings with a focus on HIV and 2SLGBTQ+ services. He’s been providing training to teams and organizations since 2010. Rahim has sat on numerous hiring committees, conducted needs assessments, and mediated employee conflicts. He has offered external clinical supervision to teams and engaged them in stream mapping exercises to enhance workflow and patient flow procedures. While primarily offering direct client services throughout his career, Rahim is invested in providing teams with the support they offer their service users and communities. He has completed the Pittsburgh Balint Group Leader Intensive (2023) through the American Balint Society.

Community Work and Writing

Rahim dedicated over ten years to community organizing with Salaam Canada, a national volunteer-run LGBTQ Muslim organization. He is on the faculty team and advisory committee for the Contemporary Relationships Conference (2019 to present) based in Austin and the Board of Directors at the Gestalt Institute of Toronto (2023 to present). He was a co-editor and essay contributor in a local history anthology entitled Any Other Way: How Toronto Got Queer, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Toronto Book Awards.

Awards

AASECT Humanitarian Award
American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists, 2025

Mary Smith Arnold Anti-Oppression Award
Counselors for Social Justice, American Counseling Association, 2025

Gina Ogden Curatorial Scholarship for Integrative Sex Research
Kinsey Institute, Indiana University, 2025

Distinguished Leader Award (Toronto Region)
Ontario Association of Social Workers, 2024

DSW Writing Award for Advancing Social Work and Social Justice
University of Alabama, 2025

Fellow, Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies
University of Toronto, 2021

Champion Award (25 Champions in 25 Years)
Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention, 2020

Proud to Shine Community Award
CBC Toronto, 2018

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Selected Publications