Participant Feedback on Men's Behavioural Change Programs

Description
This project is being undertaken as part of a Masters research project in the Counselling program through the University of Southern Queensland. 

The purpose of this project is to gain feedback and perspectives on Men’s Behaviour Change Programs from men who started but did not complete the program to understand from their perspective what contributed to them withdrawing from the program and what they suggest could contribute to improving the content and approach of the program, increasing program engagement and completion.

Participation
Your participation will involve participating in an interview that will take approximately 30-60 minutes of your time.
Questions will include: 
“What did you find most helpful about a Men’s Behaviour Change Program?”
“What were your reasons for withdrawing from the group early?”
“Do you have any suggestions for those who plan and run these groups, that might generally help group members to participate, complete and make positive changes?

Your participation in this project is entirely voluntary. If you do not wish to take part, you do not have to. If you decide to take part and later change your mind, you are free to withdraw from the project at any reasonable stage. You may also request that any data collected about you be withdrawn and confidentially destroyed. 

You will be unable to withdraw data collected about yourself after the data has been analysed. 
If you do wish to withdraw from this project or withdraw data collected about yourself please contact the Research Team (contact details at the bottom of this section). 

Your decision whether you take part, do not take part, or take part and then withdraw, will in no way impact your current or future relationship with the University of Southern Queensland or Queensland Corrective Services. Please note, your current supervision with Queensland Corrective Services will not be impacted one way or another. You will not receive any benefit is it relates to your sentence and supervision if you participate, and you will not be disadvantaged in any way if you choose not to participate, or if you choose to participate and then withdraw.

The interviews will be conducted online via Zoom (video chat) and recorded by the primary researcher, with access to recordings provided to the research team only. Queensland Corrective Services will not have access to the recordings. If you are unwilling or unable to participate via Zoom, however would still like to participate in this research project, please contact a member of the research team and an alternative interview method can be discussed. If you do not have access to a device with Zoom capability and internet connection, alternative access can be offered to you, such as attending a Queensland Corrective Services community office of University of Southern Queensland campus to utilise their equipment to participate in an interview.

Expected benefits 
It is expected that this project may not directly benefit you. However; it may benefit future participants of Men’s Behaviour Change Programs by influencing future research that contributes to the content and approach of these programs to encourage more participants to remain engaged and receive improved outcomes.

Risks 
In participating in the interview, there are minimal risks to you, such as the inconvenience meeting with the interviewer and participating in the interview online for up to an hour.  

Sometimes thinking about the sorts of issues raised in the interview can create some uncomfortable or distressing feelings. If you need to talk to someone about this immediately, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14. You may also wish to consider consulting your General Practitioner (GP) for additional support. Further support related to domestic violence can be sought through DVConnect Men’s Line on 1800 600 636.

A member of the research team will contact you in the days following the interview to confirm you are not experiencing any distress as a result of your participation in this research.

Privacy and confidentiality  
The Primary Researcher is currently employed by Queensland Corrective Services, however her professional work is conducted in a district other than where participants are being recruited from. The research is being conducted as part of the researcher’s Higher Degree by Research candidature and not being conducted for professional reasons. The data gathered is not being provided to Queensland Corrective Services beyond that which will be made publicly available at the completion of the project.

All comments and responses are confidential unless required by law, such as if you disclose illegal activity, child abuse, intention to harm yourself or others, and so on. In such cases, the relevant authorities will be notified.

The interview will be recorded so it can later be transcribed for analysis. You can request to be provided with a copy of the transcribed interview sent to an address/email address of your choosing to review and offer edits in a timely manner. Only the primary researcher and supervisor will have access to the recordings and transcribed data. It is preferable that you consent to having the interview recorded to maintain the integrity of your responses. The recording will not be made available to Queensland Corrective Services or to the organisation that facilitated the Men’s Behaviour Change Program you previously withdrew from.

The data will be made available for future similar research purposes and will be non-identifiable; no one will know the responses came from you. Should you wish to receive a results summary by mail or email, please advise the researcher during the interview so your contact details can be retained for this purpose. It is your responsible to ensure the security of your mail and email so that this information is note disclosed to others. Privacy measures can be discussed if you are unsure about this.

Any data collected as a part of this project will be stored securely, as per University of Southern Queensland’s Research Data and Primary Materials Management Procedure. 

Consent to participate 
We would like to ask you to sign a written consent form to confirm your agreement to participate in this project. Please return your signed consent form to a member of the Research team prior to participating in your interview.

Questions 
Please refer to the Research team contact details at the bottom of the form to have any questions answered or to request further information about this project.

Concerns or complaints  
If you have any concerns or complaints about the ethical conduct of the project, you may contact the University of Southern Queensland, Manager of Research Integrity and Ethics on +61 7 4631 1839 or email researchintegrity@usq.edu.au. Alternatively, you can contact QCS Research and Evaluation Group on 07 3565 7417 or email research@corrections.qld.gov.au. The Manager of Research Integrity and Ethics and QCS Research and Evaluation Group are not connected with the research project and can address your concern in an unbiased manner.

Thank you for taking the time to help with this research project. Please keep this information for future reference. 

Research team contact details
Principal Investigator 
Ms Quinta Maxwell
Email: q1220696@umail.usq.edu.au
Telephone: +61 7 4591 4100

Supervisor    
Dr Nathan Beel
Email: beel@usq.edu.au
Telephone: +61 7 38126191