For Olivia Fadul, disability justice begins with being seen

Too often, disability is treated as something to diagnose, manage or fix rather than a lived experience to understand in full.

For Olivia Fadul, that gap is not abstract. It is personal, professional and urgent.

A doctoral student in Counseling Education and Supervision at The University of New Mexico College of Education and Human Sciences (COEHS), Fadul is committed to helping reshape counseling education through disability-affirming care, work rooted in her own experiences growing up hard of hearing in systems that did not always leave room for disabled people to feel fully seen.

Born in Decatur, Ala., Fadul grew up not far from Tuscumbia, the hometown of Helen Keller. As a child, she said, disability representation felt limited. She remembers Keller and Heather Whitestone, the first deaf Miss America, as two of the few visible examples she had.

Diagnosed with hearing loss at age 5, Fadul was the only person in her family with that experience. Her parents both worked in healthcare, and she describes her childhood as shaped by a medical-model environment, one that often framed disability through intervention and repair.

"I knew I could hear," Fadul said. "Experiencing hearing loss at age 5, that became a landmark moment that shaped how I began to understand and embrace disability identity."

That experience stayed with her. So did her parents' example.

Though they hoped she would become a nurse, Fadul chose a different path into care.

"I always wanted to be in healthcare, but I didn't become a medical practitioner," she said. "I became a counselor instead."

That decision became the foundation for the work she is now pursuing: expanding counseling education to better reflect the realities, identities and needs of disabled and neurodivergent people.

Fadul said she began to notice that counseling programs offered few models for disability-affirming care outside of rehabilitation counseling. She did not see herself reflected in the curriculum, and she began asking bigger questions about what meaningful support could look like for children and adolescents navigating diagnosis, stigma and school systems.

"And to me, I think I didn't feel myself seen in the curriculum," Fadul said. "So I wanted to create something for children with disabilities."

Her work is especially focused on young people, including adolescents and children involved in juvenile justice systems, where she saw firsthand how layered mental health and disability experiences can be. A diagnosis, she said, is never the whole story.

"I think within disability mental healthcare, we're moving into the kind of care that is multidimensional and not one-size-fits-all," Fadul said.

That belief now shapes her teaching, research and professional development. She is especially committed to ensuring lived experience is represented in the way counselors are trained.

"Sometimes I see case studies and I'm like, that doesn't really sound like individuals with disabilities' stories," Fadul said. "And so I'm changing the system by being part of the system."

Fadul's path to UNM was also guided by questions of identity, purpose and community. After moving from Alabama to the Bay Area and working across mental healthcare, private practice and educational settings, she found herself rethinking her future during the pandemic. At the same time, rising anti-Asian hate pushed her into deeper reflection about her Filipino American identity, her disability identity and the kind of work she wanted to do in the world.

"I want to be part of the change," she said.

She said UNM stood out because of its values, the history of the institution and the counseling program's mission. Just as important, she wanted to live in a place where she could build community beyond the classroom.

In New Mexico, she did exactly that. Fadul became involved with the Hearing Loss Association of America's Albuquerque chapter, served in leadership with the New Mexico Counseling Association and completed a three-year term on the City of Albuquerque's ADA Council.

Her long-term goal is equally clear. Fadul plans to become a professor and continue advancing disability-affirming care within counseling education while also maintaining a counseling practice so her teaching remains grounded in the lived realities of the communities she serves.

"I'm set on being a professor," she said. "I'm set on developing disability-affirming care within counseling education."

For students with disabilities who hope to pursue higher education, Fadul's advice is rooted in mentorship and community. Success, she said, begins with finding people who help you imagine what is possible.

"When you're a student with disability, having to build your garden. Build your garden on what success looks like for you," Fadul said.

That commitment to disability justice, advocacy and community education is one reason Fadul is being recognized with the New Mexico Counseling Association's 2026 Community Impact Award.

The association praised her not only for her contributions to the organization, but also for "the amazing work you do in educating our community on disability justice, promoting knowledge, awareness, and advocacy."

"Olivia brings extraordinary intelligence, heart and purpose to everything she does," Dean Kris Goodrich said. "As her mentor, I have seen firsthand how thoughtfully she connects her lived experience, her scholarship and her commitment to others. As dean, I am proud that the New Mexico Counseling Association is recognizing what our community already knows: Olivia's work is helping move the field toward greater justice, compassion and inclusion."