Base de données de recherche des TNO

Régions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Gwich'in Settlement Area

étiquettes: social sciences, youth, travel safety, water safety

Objectif(s): To reduce the loss of life, injuries, and property damage due to boating incidents in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, NWT, by encouraging safe boating practices and compliance with regulations through education, awareness and information.

Description du projet: This licence has been issued for the scientific research application No.5154. The objectives are as follows: 1) to reduce the loss of life, injuries, and property damage due to boating incidents in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (ISR), by encouraging safe boating practices and compliance with regulations through education, awareness and information; and, 2) to produce and circulate materials that improve and promote boating safety in the ISR. To date, Aklavik, Sachs Harbour, Paulatuk, Ulukhoktuk, and Tuktoyaktuk have each received boating safety equipment of their choosing (included survival suits, in-reach devises, radios). Due to COVID-19, the research team were unable to do the research that the team had proposed for 2020 and 2021. As a result, the team did some of the work online. Specifically, the team worked with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC) and community members in Tuktoyaktuk to create, pilot, and then offer a cold water survival course. It was offered in Tuktoyaktuk and Paulatuk in person and online (offered by the IRC). This research was published in the International Journal of Circumpolar Health. The research team now seek to complete the work. The research team will be using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) methodology to both develop the intervention and to evaluate it. Here, the team will focus on evaluation. There are numerous, well-documented strengths to adopting a CBPR methodology for evaluation. Those who use this methodology try to ensure that research is more responsive to community members’ priorities by creating a more balanced exchange than other types of methodologies for knowledge production and social action in communities. Indeed, this methodology is intended to realign traditional power relations between the researcher/researched through the creation of equitable roles between researchers and non-academic stakeholders/participants. CBPR includes community members’ perspectives (for example, on the kind of intervention to be developed and delivered) in the fabric of the inquiry. The building of relationships between researchers and community members can improve the quality of the research, the validity of results, and ultimately improve community health with the development of appropriate health strategies. CBPR practitioners attempt to strengthen a community's problem-solving capacity through collective engagement in the research process. A participatory approach that includes community members in all aspects of its design also allows for the innovative adaptation of existing resources and can lead to creative solutions specific to the community. The research team would like to spend the first four months of 2022 revising the curriculum of the Kids Don’t Float Program (which is a program that was developed for Alaska, but has strong relevance for the communities with which the team are working) and developing resources for teaching the Pleasure Craft Operator Card course in a way that is culturally relevant and that includes northern supplements. This will involve the input of community members as the advisory committee, which will meet online and whose members will also participate in focus groups about their experiences in revising the programs. The team will use focus groups to evaluate the pilot intervention and the refined intervention. In 2022 – 2023, the team will deliver and evaluate the programs in each community, mentoring local co-instructors. The team will continue to mentor the co-instructors in their teaching online and co-deliver programs with them online until they are ready to deliver the programs alone. The research team will provide digital copies of all materials that the team co-develops with community members to stakeholders: Canadian Safe Boating Council and its members; Hamlet Councils; Hunters and Trappers Organizations; the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation; the Government of the NWT (Injury Prevention); the Canadian Red Cross; the Lifesaving Society of Canada; the NWT Recreation and Parks Association; and Canadian Power and Sail Squadrons. The research team will create Instagram and Twitter accounts to document the activities throughout the grant to increase awareness of and interest in the process and outcomes. These accounts will be managed by Giles. The team will invite the Inuvik Drum, CBC North, local radio, and News/North, and Cabin Radio to cover the events. The intended audience is those who use boats in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region: Elders, adults, youth/children. Participants in the research will be assigned a pseudonym if they want one; only the research team will have access to identifying data. For the focus group data, those who wish to be identified will have their pseudonyms removed. It is important to recognize the expert contributions of participants if they desire to be recognized by name. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from February 3, 2022 to December 31, 2022.