Informed Consent Form
Study Name: Autistic Perspectives on Vulnerable Person’s Registries: Challenges and Opportunities
Researcher: Alisha Salerno, PhD, Sessional Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, York University, sal3rnoa@yorku.ca
Purpose of the Research: I am interested in exploring your experiences with the police and police registries. The data collected in this survey will help us to understand the strengths and weaknesses of police registries, as well as potential areas of improvement. The goal is to help police services improve service delivery to autistic people.
What You Will Be Asked to Do in the Research: I will be asking you to complete a brief survey where you will answer some questions about police registries. The estimated time commitment is around 20 to 30 minutes. At the end of the survey, you will have the opportunity to enter your email into a draw for a $50 Amazon gift card.
Risks and Discomforts It is possible that you may feel uncomfortable answering some of the questions given the nature of the study. Participation is entirely voluntary and you do not have to answer any questions that make you uncomfortable. There are some mental health/social support resources provided at the end of the consent form that you may find helpful.
Benefits of the Research and Benefits to You: This research will not only provide invaluable information on a previously neglected topic but can also contribute to and advance current police practices regarding registries. Potential benefits include developing an understanding of the research process and methods used in psychology, as well as greater insight into vulnerable persons’ registries.
Voluntary Participation and Withdrawal: Your participation in the study is completely voluntary and you may choose to stop participating at anytime. If you stop participating, you will still be eligible to be entered into the draw, even if you withdraw without completion of the research. Your decision not to volunteer, to stop participating, or to refuse to answer questions will not influence your relationship with Dr. Salerno, or your relationship with York University either now, or in the future.
Confidentiality: All information you supply during the research will be held in confidence; your name will not appear in any report or publication of the research. Your data will be safely stored in a locked password-protected drive and only Dr. Salerno will have access to this information. Confidentiality will be provided to the fullest extent possible by law. The data collected in this research project may be used in anonymized form by members of the research team in subsequent research investigations exploring similar lines of inquiry. Such projects will still undergo ethics review by the HPRC, our institutional REB. Any secondary use of anonymized data by the research team will be treated with the same degree of confidentiality and anonymity as in the original research project. Please note that at the end of the study, anonymized data will be deposited into one or more publicly accessible scientific repositories, such as the OSF, so that data may be inspected and analyzed by other researchers. The data that will be shared on the OSF or YorkU Dataverse will not contain any information that can identify you. This data will be retained indefinitely in the repository. The researchers also acknowledge that the host of the online survey (QuestionPro) may automatically collect participant data without their knowledge (i.e., IP addresses.) Although this information may be provided or made accessible to the researchers, it will not be used or saved without participant’s consent on the researchers system and this information is not needed for the purposes of this study. Further, because this project employs e-based collection techniques, data may be subject to access by third parties as a result of various security legislation now in place in many countries and thus the confidentiality and privacy of data cannot be guaranteed during web-based transmission.
Questions About the Research? If you have questions about the research in general or about your role in the study, please feel free to contact Dr. Salerno by e-mail (sal3rnoa@yorku.ca). This research has received ethics review and approval by the Human Participants Review Sub-Committee, York University’s Ethics Review Board and conforms to the standards of the Canadian Tri-Council Research Ethics guidelines [e2024-323]. If you have any questions about this process, or about your rights as a participant in the study, please contact the Manager, Research Ethics in the Office of Research Ethics, Kaneff Tower, York University (e-mail
ore@yorku.ca). This office oversees the ethical conduct of research studies and is not part of the study team. Everything that you discuss will be kept confidential.
Resources:
Ontario mental health supports via CMHA:
https://ontario.cmha.ca/provincial-mental-health-supports/
Canada-wide mental health supports:
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/campaigns/get-help-here.html
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