Denise Hanson

She is part of the UCLan Criminal Justice Partnership, which is a dynamic collaboration of academics from a broad range of disciplines who can respond in a timely and innovative way to the challenges faced by a diverse range of external partners. Her portfolio includes teaching law, leadership in a policing context and digital investigations.  She is also a supervisor for undergraduate and post graduate dissertation students on policing courses. Denise is a a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy involved in promoting excellent teaching practice across the institution.

Course leader for BSc Policing and Criminal Investigation teaching team, Denise isalso module lead for Introduction to Law, Leadership & Management and contributes to subject specific areas within other policing related modules up to postgraduate level. She has conducted research into police officer experiences tackling mental health-related issues in the North West and police wellbeing as part of the Blue Light Wellbeing Framework. She is an academic advisor supporting student experience offering pastoral advice as well as academic guidance. Her research focus is currently around police officer education, police leadership and optimising staff development to respond to increasingly complex societal requirements of policing in the UK.

Denise has 14 years of experience as a warranted officer with Lancashire Constabulary and qualified to the rank of Inspector. As well as gaining extensive experience in the operational field, Denise worked on the early strategic alliance between UCLan and Lancashire Constabulary towards evidence based policing outcomes. In managing talent for business longevity and success, she designed innovative internal and external leadership development programmes, inspired through a keen interest in coaching others. She worked in collaboration with Blackburn University to inspire members from black and minority ethnic communities towards police staff and officer leadership roles. She has expertise in the field of change management within policing during the most high risk and dynamic organisational reviews in the Constabulary’s history. As a keen advocate using technology enabled teaching, Denise discussed transition from classroom based teaching to online learning in partnership with Microsoft and The Guardian, 'You're not tied to a topic or a timetable; how online teaching is revolutionising the way students are learning'. Denise is an associate of the College of Policing involved in the recruitment and assessment of police officers in the North West and a member of the Oscar Kilo and contributed to their national police well-being research programme.