Participant Information

What is this document? This is the Participant Information Sheet explaining the nature and purpose of the current research study, along with your rights as a participant. Adults with responsibility for vulnerable young people can have reservations about facilitating the participation of these young people in research that explores trauma experiences. This study aims to understand those concerns of adults and develop measures to ensure the safety of such research to allow responsible adults to feel more confident about facilitating direct research with trauma-exposed young people with care-experiences.

Why have I been invited to take part? You have been invited to participate in the project due to your experience of working with children and young people with care experience.

Do I have to take part? No, you do not have to take part in this research. Participation is voluntary. You will be invited to take part in an online consultation group with other participants. If you wish to withdraw during the study, you can exit the meeting at any point. Withdrawal of consent or decision not to participate will not affect you in any way. The study will be conducted using University of Edinburgh’s Zoom platform.

As the meeting will be recorded (using Zoom’s recording option) for the purposes of transcribing and analysis, you can turn off your video, if you do not wish to be recorded. We will delete the video recordings once the audio recordings have been secured. The audio recordings will be transcribed, anonymised and stored in secure folders on the University network for a minimum of 5 years. The transcriptions will be used to analyse data, and will only be shared amongst the PhD researcher and supervisors.  The anonymised data can be used by other researchers under the stewardship of Dr. Emily Taylor (PhD Supervisor) in the future. The audio recordings will not be used in the analysis except for the purposes of matching comments to participants (identified by a participant number or a pseudonym) or clarifying speech where the audio track is not clear. These recordings will be stored in the University of Edinburgh’s network for up to 5 years.

Is my participation voluntary? Yes, your participation is voluntary. You have the right to refuse participation. You also have the right to withdraw consent at any given point of time during the study. However, it would not be possible to delete your data up until that point. As we are conducting group discussions, it would mean deleting data provided by other consenting participants.

What should I expect if I take part in this study? The focus groups will last approximately 60 minutes. If you consent to participate in the study, you will be sent the meeting information to join a focus group, which will be hosted on Zoom. You will be asked different questions about the participation of care-experienced young people in trauma-focused research. You will be asked questions about concerns shared by adult stakeholders and the measures required to support young people to participate in psychological research.

What should I expect if I take part in this study? The consultation groups will last approximately 60 minutes. If you consent to participate in the study, you will be sent the meeting information to join a focus group, which will be hosted on Zoom. You will be asked different questions about the participation of care-experienced young people in psychological research. You will be asked questions about concerns shared by adult stakeholders and the measures required to support young people to participate in psychological research.

What are the possible benefits of taking part? By taking part in the study, you will help develop a best practice guideline to support young people participating in psychological research. This guideline will then be used to inform different organisations working with care-experienced children and young people.

What are the possible risks or disadvantages of taking part in the study? There are no significant risks associated with participating in this study. Nonetheless, you will be provided with information about support available after the study.

How will the information be used and stored? All the information collected during the study will be stored and managed using the data protection guidelines mandated by the university. The consultation groups will be recorded using Zoom’s recording function and the recordings will be stored in encrypted folders under the university server. All the data will be shared ONLY within the research team using university network. The analysis will be used within a PhD thesis, presenting at various conferences and/or will be published in peer-reviewed journals.

What will happen with the results of this study? The data collected will help us to create a best practice guideline that will help us create protocols to facilitate young people’s participation in research. The data collected in the study will also be a part of a PhD thesis. The results of the study will also be published in peer-reviewed journals and/or conference presentations.

What if I have any questions? If you have any questions about what you have read, please feel free to ask any questions, or contact us later. You can contact then main research (Raahat Manrai) at R.Manrai@sms.ed.ac.uk. This project has been approved by School of Health in Social Science Ethics committee. If you would like to speak to someone independent of the research team, please contact Helen Sharpe (Research Lead for Clinical & Health Psychology) at Helen.Sharpe@ed.ac.uk. Additionally, if you need to make complaint about this study please contact Matthias Schwannauer (Head of School of Health in Social Science, the University of Edinburgh) via email at headofschool.health@ed.ac.uk. 

You also download this information in the form of a document here: Participant Information Sheet- DELPHI.