Violence Against Women Advocates and Community Coordination |
Consent Form
Jenna Pearce
Principal Investigator
Department of Psychology
Vancouver Island University
jennapearce@stumail.viu.ca
Dr. Melanie O'Neill
Supervisor
Department of Psychology
Vancouver Island University
Melanie.O'Neill@viu.ca
The researchers are looking to investigate how violence against women advocates are impacted by the level of community coordination utilized to respond to and prevent violence against women.
As a participant in this study, you will be asked to respond to a questionnaire regarding your experience as a violence against women advocate in British Columbia. Violence against women advocates include workers or volunteers at a rape crisis center, transition house, second-stage house, third-stage house, safe home, community-based victim services, stop the violence counseling, crisis lines, or other positions that primarily work to support survivors of intimate partner violence, sexual assault, or other forms of violence against women. Additionally, a variety of measures will be used to assess your overall psychological health, as well as questions inquiring about your general demographics (age, ethnicity, employment status, etc.). Please note that the measures used in this study are not diagnostic tools. If you are looking to receive a diagnosis, please contact your nearest physician. The study should take approximately 30 to 45 minutes to complete.
Depending on your previous life experiences, participation may trigger distress or discomfort due to the nature of the questions. Therefore, the research team has provided the contact information for a variety of mental health resources below, should you decide to seek support. If you feel significantly uncomfortable or distressed by a question, you are free to skip the question or withdraw from the study entirely.
Your participation is completely voluntary and anonymous. The research survey will be presented through the online platform SurveyMonkey. This platform allows participants to review and change their answers, leave answers blank, and withdraw from the study at any point in time until the survey is submitted. Due to the anonymity of participation, it will be impossible to withdraw data once the survey is submitted.
All records will be kept strictly confidential. SurveyMonkey servers are located in the United States and are therefore subject to the USA Patriot Act (https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/3162). Your responses will briefly be stored on SurveyMonkey, where they will be secured in the SOP 2 accredited data centers. Information regarding the privacy policy and the security policy of SurveyMonkey is provided in the links attached below. Data will then be transferred to a secured computer drive at Vancouver Island University and inputted to SPSS for analysis by the primary investigator and overseen by the research supervisor. Only the principal investigator will have access to the locked drive. All unaggregated data will be permanently deleted after the research is completed. The research is aimed to be completed in April of 2023. Please note that no individual identifiable responses will be available to the public. The research results will be written in a final report and presented to a committee of Vancouver Island University faculty in the psychology department, as well as at an academic conference.