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Project Title: Placement Experiences among Professional Psychology Graduate Students

Researcher: Alisia Palermo, Clinical Psychology Graduate Student, Department of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan. Contact information: trauma.research@usask.ca

Principal Investigator: Jorden Cummings, Ph.D., R.D.Psych Department of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan. Contact information: Telephone - (306) 966-7147; Email - jorden.cummings@usask.ca or trauma.research@usask.ca

*Note: Due to COVID-19 closures, Dr. Cummings might not receive your voicemail immediately. It is recommended that you utilize the email addresses listed above to contact her and/or the researcher.

Introduction: You are invited to participate in a research study entitled Placement Experiences among Professional Psychology Graduate Students. Please read the information about the study presented in this form. After reading this form, please take as much time as you need to decide if you would like to participate. You can contact the Principal Investigator (PI) or researcher to explain anything that you do not understand and to make sure all your questions have been answered before consenting to participate. Participation in this study is voluntary.

Purpose and Procedure: You have been asked to participate in a study designed to examine professional psychology graduate students’ experiences at clerkship, practicum, internship, and/or other supervised practice placements.

You have been invited to participate in this study because you meet the following inclusion criteria:
(1) You are 18 years or older.
(2) You have attended or are currently attending a post-secondary institution in Canada or in the United States of America.
(3) You completed, were enrolled in (but did not necessarily complete), or are currently enrolled in a clinical, counselling, school, or clinical neuro- psychology graduate program.
(4) You are currently completing or have completed at least one placement (i.e., clerkship, practicum, internship) in the program.

You will be asked to complete an anonymous online survey via SurkeyMonkey that includes demographic questions and questions about any adverse experiences at placements. This survey includes questions about experiences of sexual harassment and assault; however, we are interested in learning about placement experiences regardless of whether you have had these experiences. This survey should take approximately 30 minutes of your time. Please note that your identity will not be linked to your survey responses. Furthermore, your identity and participation in this study will be kept confidential.
Potential Risks: There are no anticipated risks for participation in this study, although you might feel emotional disclosing any adverse experiences, including sexual harassment and assault. If you feel uncomfortable at any time, you have the option to select “prefer not to answer” and/or to skip any question you do not want to answer. You have the right to withdraw from this study without penalty as well. If you wish to withdrawal, you may simply exit the Internet browser.

You can contact the PI, Dr. Jorden Cummings, to discuss your reactions to the study, including feelings of distress, at the contact information listed above. Dr. Cummings is a doctoral-level clinical psychologist whose research and clinical work specializes in trauma. Please note, however, that Dr. Cummings might not receive your email or voicemail immediately and is not a good resource should you feel so distressed that you need immediate assistance.

If you are experiencing severe distress or an emergency, you can contact the Canada Suicide Prevention Service (available 24/7/365) at 1-833-456-4566 or text 45645 (available 4:00 PM – Midnight EST). Follow this link for regional resources and hotlines: https://www.crisisservicescanada.ca/en/looking-for-local-resources-support/.

Compensation: There is no compensation for this study; however, participants will have the opportunity to enter a draw for the chance to win 1 of 40 $25 Amazon gift cards. Please note that you must click “submit” at the end of the survey and provide your first name and email address to be entered into the draw. This personal information (i.e., first name, email address) will be collected and stored separately from your survey responses to ensure your anonymity. Following the survey, you will be re-directed to a separate survey where you will enter your personal information to be entered into the draw. You are only able to enter the draw once and you will not be compensated if it is found that you submitted more than one entry or submitted fraudulent entries into the draw.

Storage of Data: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, your data will be stored on a password-protected laptop in the researcher’s home that will not be accessible by any individuals outside of the research team. Data will also be stored on a University of Saskatchewan cloud storage service (i.e., Datastore). Data will be stored for a minimum of 5 years post-publication as well. Your first name and email address will be kept on file if you agree to be contacted in the future for a follow-up interview. However, this information will never be stored in the same file as your survey responses, and this file will also be password-protected. Your de-identified data will be archived indefinitely and potentially used in future research.
Confidentiality: Your privacy will be respected and all responses you provide in this study will be anonymous. As previously mentioned, the online survey is hosted via SurveyMonkey – please click the link to review SurveyMonkey’s Privacy Policy (https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/legal/privacy/). At the end of the survey, you will have the opportunity to provide your first name and email address to be entered into a draw and/or to be contacted for a follow-up; however, this information will be collected in a different survey from your responses and will not be stored with the responses you provide for the survey. Therefore, we will not be able to identify participants unless you contact us for some reason.

Given that you will be required to participate in a virtual interview with the student researcher prior to participation in the study, your identity will be known to the student researcher. However, your identity will not be linked to your identity. Furthermore, your identity and participation in this study will be kept confidential.

Zoom: Virtual interviews will be conducted via Alisia Palermo’s University of Saskatchewan Zoom account. This Zoom account achieves HIPAA (signed BAA) and PIPEDAA/PHIPA compliance with data in motion encryption at the application layer using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

Here is the link to Zoom’s Privacy Statement: https://explore.zoom.us/en/privacy/

Here is the link to Zoom’s HIPAA compliance guide: https://zoom.us/docs/doc/Zoom-hipaa.pdf

Here is the link to Zoom’s PIPEDAA/PHIPA compliance guide: https://zoom.us/docs/doc/PIPEDA_PHIPA%20Canadian%20Public%20Information%20Compliance%20Guide.pdf

It is important to note that there are some situations where confidentiality can be broken without your permission. If any of these circumstances arise, we will make every effort to discuss them with you before breaking confidentiality. These instances include:

a) If you indicate that you are at imminent risk to harm yourself or someone else, we are required to help keep you safe and can intervene to do so. This might require us to waive your confidentiality so that appropriate help can be sought;

b) If we have reason to suspect that a child is currently being abused, we are obligated to report this information to child protective services and your confidentiality may be waived to do so;

c) If our records are subpoenaed by a court of law, we might be required to release information.
Right to Withdraw: Your participation is voluntary, and you can respond only those questions that you are comfortable with by selecting the option “prefer not to answer” and/or skipping any questions you do not want to answer. You may stop the survey at any time, without explanation or penalty of any sort. You will be able to withdraw from the survey by exiting the Internet browser at any time. Due to the anonymous nature of data collection, we will not be able to withdraw your data after you have submitted the survey and have consented to the retainment of your data.

Follow up: In the future, we may want to contact participants to participate in follow-up phone interviews about their adverse experiences at field/clinical placements. These interviews will help us translate the quantitative data we gathered in this survey into real, human experiences.

Once you finish the survey today and provide your first name and email address, we will ask for your permission to contact you in the future for these follow-up interviews. This information will be collected and stored separately from your survey responses to ensure your anonymity. You are welcome to decline to be contacted in the future and there is no penalty for refusing to participate in the follow-up study. If you agree to be contacted for any follow-up study, we will re-confirm your consent to participate and you are welcome to decline at that time.

Debriefing and Dissemination of Results: The data and results will be used for the researcher’s Master’s Transfer Project and for publications/conference presentations. If you are interested in being informed of the results of the study, please contact the PI or the researcher after the completion of the study. However, you will not receive feedback about your individual participation because only aggregate results will be published.

If you have any questions regarding the research project, you are free to contact the researcher, Alisia Palermo, and/or the PI, Dr. Jorden Cummings, at the contact information listed above. We understand that thinking about trauma can be a difficult experience. If you feel upset at any point in this process, we would like to discuss this with you. Please note that the e-mail trauma.research@usask.ca is only accessible by a small number of individuals in the trauma research laboratory who are currently using it for research purposes, all of whom have reviewed and signed a confidentiality agreement. If you are experiencing severe distress or an emergency, you may also contact the helplines and crisis services listed above. You will be provided with a Debrief Form that includes the helplines and crises services at the end of the survey.

Participant Rights and Concerns: Please read this consent form carefully and feel free to ask the researcher any questions that you might have about the study. This research project was approved on ethical grounds by the University of Saskatchewan Human Behavioural Research Ethics Boards #2579 on August 25, 2024. Any questions about your rights as a participant in this study or complaints may be addressed to the Research Ethics Office at 1-888-966-2975 or at ethics.office@usask.ca.

Question Title

Consent to Participate:
1. I have read the consent form and understand the study being described.
2. I have had an opportunity to ask questions, and my questions have been answered. I am free to ask questions about the study in the future.
3. I freely consent to participate in the research study, understanding that I may discontinue at any time without penalty. A copy of this Consent Form has been made available to me.

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