Mental health and trauma; drug and alcohol use and rehabilitation; qualitative methods
Gisella Hanley is an anthropologist with a long-standing interest in the co-design and development of interventions for improved mental health and wellbeing. She has carried out research with street children and young offenders in a Therapeutic Community in Brazil; street children in Mexico; young offenders in the UK in their transition to adulthood; drug and alcohol users in a Community Justice Court; and steroid users. Gisella has previously taken time out from academia to set up and run a drug rehabilitation and arts-based prevention programme for street and low-income children in the northeast of Brazil.
Among other projects, Gisella is currently working on an evaluation of the Community Health and Wellbeing Worker (CHWW) Service in Cornwall – a community healthcare strategy developed in Brazil and brought to the UK in 2021.