African Nova Scotian Strategy Focus Group

The study is about best practices for creating a framework for how research should be conducted with and for the African Nova Scotian community. The focus groups cover issues raised in a study entitled:

·         Developing an African Nova Scotian Research Ethics Framework and Protocol

It has five objectives: (1) explore how African Nova Scotians understand and envision research; (2) examine how research has harmed African Nova Scotians; (3) develop a new research ethics framework to guide future research; (4) build capacity and training for African Nova Scotian student and community-based researchers and (5) develop training modules for both African Nova Scotian and non-African Nova Scotian researchers.

We want to include African Nova Scotians from across the province of various ages and experiences to better understand how research has impacted African Nova Scotians and how to guide future research. Your experience may help us improve the system. In this study, African Nova Scotians are defined as a distinct people who descend from free and enslaved Black Planters, Black Loyalists, Black Refugees, Maroons, and other Black people who inhabited the original fifty-two land-based Black communities in Nova Scotia.

We will ask for your opinions on issues relating to the how you understand the meaning of research, your experiences with research and how research approaches could be improved in African Nova Scotian communities.

One of the researchers or a community liaison from the area will be asking the questions. At least one member of the research team will be present throughout the focus groups taking notes and to answer questions.

Each focus group will take approximately 2 hours (120 minutes), including a ten-minute break.

If you don’t like the questions or you want to leave the focus group for any other reason, you can just tell the researcher or facilitator. You can decide not to answer any question that makes you uncomfortable. You can leave the focus group at any time.

We are not aware of any risks associated with your participation in the focus group. Please tell the researcher if you have any concerns or report your concerns to the Dalhousie Office of Research Ethics Administration at (902) 494-3423, or email ethics@dal.ca (and reference REB file 2022- 6050)

Taking part in the focus group may not benefit you directly. You may find it interesting to hear the views of others who have similar or different experiences and opinions. Your participation will help to improve future research activities involving African Nova Scotians.

People will know of your participation in a focus group if you choose to tell them.

All participants in the focus group will be asked to sign a confidentiality form. They will promise not to identify any of the participants or to discuss what any particular individual says during the focus groups with anyone who was not there. However, members of the research team cannot guarantee that this promise will be honoured.

Members of the research will not tell anyone about your participation. We will protect your anonymity in several ways:

• We will destroy the information used to contact you after we have finished doing the focus groups.
• We will store the signed consent forms and all paper records of the focus groups in locked filing cabinets at Dalhousie University.
• If you say anything that identifies you (or others in your circle) during the focus group, we will delete it from our notes and not include it in our transcripts.
• Any information stored on a computer will be password protected.
• We will hide your identity in anything we write or say about these focus groups.
• Quotes (if used) will only be used in ways that keep your identity private.

Keep in mind that your identity will be known to others in the focus group. You may also be recognizable to those in other focus groups who may know you beforehand. Though everyone will sign a confidentiality form.

We must inform you that there is an exception to this confidentiality in that we have a duty report to the proper authorities if you discuss abuse or neglect (or suspicion of abuse or neglect) of a child or an adult in need of protection. This is the only instance in which privacy would be broken

Yes. The researchers will share the transcripts with the research team working on this study. Your name and any identifiers will be removed during transcription and reviewed to make sure transcripts do not identify anyone.

You can contact the Director of Dalhousie Office of Research Ethics Administration ((Reference # 2022-6050).

                Catherine Connors                          Catherine.connors@dal.ca (902) 494-1462                            

You can also contact the researchers:

Michelle Williams                             michelle.williams@dal.ca                              (902) 494-2863

Barbara Hamilton-Hinch                b.hamilton-hinch@dal.ca                             (902) 494-3391

Vanessa Fells                                     director@ansdpad.ca                                     (902) 462-3723