Dr. Jill Hanley is an Associate Professor at the McGill School of Social Work and Scientific Director of the Sherpa Research Intitute on Migration, Health and Social Services (http://sherpa-recherche.com/). Dr. Hanley’s work focuses on closing the gaps between policies and practice concerning the social rights of migrant populations. This is reflected across the various realms of her work, including at Sherpa, where she leads a team of researchers in studies to enhance front-line interventions with migrants and propose policy changes to improve access to social rights by this group.
Dr. Hanley joined the faculty in 2006, coming to the School of Social Work having previously garnered experience at Tufts University (Boston), l’Université de Montréal and the Université Libre de Bruxelles. In her varied fields of study, be they Anthropology, Urban and Environmental Policy or Social Work, Dr. Jill Hanley consistently addresses issues of community development and social rights.
Throughout the past 20 years, Dr. Hanley has researched access to health, housing and labour rights for precarious status migrants – temporary foreign workers, refugee claimants and undocumented migrants, in particular. In this context, Dr. Hanley’s research explores strategies for promoting access to social rights at the individual, family and community level. In recent years, she has looked at such issues as: access to healthcare for a continuum of precarious status migrants including pregnant undocumented women; homelessness and housing insecurity for migrant women; labour rights among temporary foreign workers; and community responses to human trafficking. A principal goal behind Dr. Hanley’s research is to document the challenges faced by the migrants so that the information can be used to strengthen community groups in their development and pursuit of rights as well as to inform policy change. Her students often have the opportunity to connect to community-based initiatives through their academic work.
Dr. Hanley works closely with a number of community organizations where she engages in policy dialogue to highlight the needs of marginalized migrant communities. She is a co-founder of Montreal’s Immigrant Workers’ Centre, where she has been actively involved since 2000. As well, Dr. Hanley teaches courses on migration, social policy and community organizing, and holds the position of the Director of the PhD program at the McGill School of Social Work.
