NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Gwich'in Settlement Area

Tags: social sciences, mental health, aboriginal youth, gender roles, interpersonal relationships

Objective(s): To describe the implementation of WiseGuyz with adolescent boys in the Beaufort Delta Education Council, in terms of the lived experiences of a) the youth participants and b) the facilitators/other key program stakeholders in the community; and, to generate culturally-appropriate knowledge about gender-transformative programs in northern and remote settings that is beneficial to youth participants, facilitators, and community partners.

Project Description: This licence has been issued for the scientific research application No.5502. The primary objectives are to describe the implementation of WiseGuyz with adolescent boys in the Beaufort Delta Education Council (BDDEC), in terms of the lived experiences of a) the youth participants and b) the facilitators/other key program stakeholders in the community; and, to generate culturally-appropriate knowledge about gender-transformative programs in northern and remote settings that is beneficial to youth participants, facilitators, and community partners. The Centre for Sexuality (C4S) will offer training on the WiseGuyz program to facilitators within the BDDEC in Inuvik, NWT in September 2022. The BDDEC is located in the Gwich’in settlement area with a primarily Gwich’in (First Nation) and Inuvialuit (Inuit) population. WiseGuyz is a participatory, gender-transformative, school-based healthy relationships resource developed and owned by the Centre for Sexuality in Calgary, AB. WiseGuyz targets adolescent boys in the age range 13-17. The foundation of the program is an integrated curriculum that is comprised of four sequential core modules facilitated over 20 sessions during school hours. The program is offered once per week, however with holidays/school events, it takes ~8 months to facilitate the 20 sessions and as a result, the program is usually implemented over the length of the school year. The first steps will focus on fostering positive relationships with community members in Inuvik. The research team will start this work by attending the WiseGuyz training hosted in Inuvik in September 2022. As the research project develops, community partners’ feedback will be incorporated into the planned method. As such, the method will likely evolve throughout the project; changes will always be based on the needs and interests of the community with whom the team will be working. In consultation with the community partners, the research team will engage in knowledge generation with WiseGuyz program facilitators, key program stakeholders in the community, and youth WiseGuyz participants in the BDDEC. The team will receive approval from all relevant agencies and community stakeholders before conducting any recruitment for this study. The methods described below were co-created through discussions between HOPELab team members and key staff in the BDDEC. The research team will invite all youth participants enrolled in the WiseGuyz program in BDDEC to join this research project. The team plan to start research recruitment alongside the first program offerings in fall 2022. We will make it clear that whether or not the youth decide to participate will not impact their access to the WiseGuyz program and associated resources. WiseGuyz program facilitators will be asked to distribute an information packet to all WiseGuyz participants in person or electronically. The information packet will contain a caregiver information letter and a caregiver Q & A style consent form. All consent documents will always be available in both written and oral formats. Per school division policy, for youth under age 18, both caregiver consent and youth assent for participation in the evaluation project will be obtained. For youth participants 18 or older, participants are able to provide their own consent for participation. Youth/caregivers can choose which aspects of the project they would like to participate in, if any. Arts Based Approach: All youth participants will have the opportunity to use art (e.g. Photos, digital media, drawing) to express how WiseGuyz has been working for them. To increase accessibility, the research team will send art supplies to all participating schools for this task. Guys who participate in this project will actively partner in the research by creating art and participating in individual and group discussions to talk about their art. They will be asked to create art that best represents what it means to be a guy in their world 1) before WiseGuyz? And, 2) since WiseGuyz? Once youth have created their art, the team will use visual storytelling to learn about their creation. Visual storytelling is a newer method designed for adolescents that draws on both photovoice and photo-elicitation (a method where participants describe the meaning of their photos in a one-to-one interview) methods. First, the team will ask participants to share their art with them through individual discussions. One of the project researchers will conduct an ~30-minute individual interview to discuss the participant’s art, per visual storytelling methodology. Participants will be allowed to choose where their interview is held. If the research team are unable to travel to the participant (e.g., due to COVID-19 restrictions), these interviews can be conducted via Zoom or telephone (in this case, we would ask participants to send us a picture of their art using WeTransfer). To protect participants’ rights, the team will follow best practices for arts-based ethics, in addition to OCAP (ownership, control, access, possession) principles that recognize the right of Indigenous peoples to own, control, access, and possess their own cultural knowledge. These principles will guide the way the team approach data access, privacy, and confidentiality in this project. Following the end of individual interviews, participants will be invited to attend a storytelling circle with other WiseGuyz participants from their school, in order to engage in critical dialogue about each other’s art, and then work to 1) select the art that best reflects their lived experiences in the program; 2) create stories to describe what the selected art means to them; and 3) identify themes that emerge from the created stories. The art and stories will be shared with the community per OCAP principles, with further potential for sharing at other relevant venues. Youth will have the option as to whether they wish to participate in community dissemination events. Arts-Based Analysis Overview: Individual interviews will be audio-recorded (as long as this is okay with the community) and transcribed verbatim, and then coded using a narrative analysis method designed for gender-based visual research. The storytelling circle will be guided by principles of participatory analysis, as well as standard arts-based analysis strategies. Storying and theming of participant art in the storytelling circle will be based on questions that ask what has changed, why these changes occurred, and what changes still need to happen. The team will also audio-record (as long as this is okay with the community) and transcribe this meeting to capture group narratives and critical dialogue about masculinities. Survey-Based Approach: The research team will also conduct brief pre- and post-program surveys with BDDEC WiseGuyz participants. The collection of survey data will allow the team to examine youth beliefs and well-being before and after participating in the WiseGuyz program. Surveys will be administered during a WiseGuyz session at the beginning and end of the program, likely in late fall and May of the given school year. The survey will occur during the participant's regular WiseGuyz time, so shouldn't present a burden in terms of completion time (note: if we cannot conduct surveys in person, the team will email out surveys so that participants can either complete them during WiseGuyz or on their own time. The research team will also send paper copies to the school in this case, with double-labeled dentification stickers to protect participant privacy). All youth who are participating in a WiseGuyz program at BDDEC will be invited to participate in surveys. Surveys will be brief (~15 minutes to complete) and include items on adherence to male role norms in relationships; negativity towards sexual minorities; sexual health self-efficacy; teen dating violence attitudes; mental health; and caring/cooperative behaviors. All survey items will be audio-recorded so youth can have the survey read out loud to them, if they so choose. The team will also collect standard WiseGuyz demographics (e.g., age, gender identity, sexual orientation, population group, economic status). If the community partner requests other measures, these may be added to the survey to ensure maximum benefit to the communities with whom the team will be working. The research team will also make sure to tell participants how the team use the data, in order to help them feel their participation is meaningful. Data will be collected via online, quantitative surveys using REDCap, or via paper if online is not an option (e.g., due to limited internet access). Anonymized data will also be shared back with project sites to support their own organizational reporting needs. Survey-Based Analysis Overview: The research team will use the quantitative data collected in the surveys to examine the variables in the survey described above. The team will take a strengths-based approach to this analysis and focus on youth resilience. In the design and analysis of the quantitative part of the project, the team also draw on writing on Indigenous. The research team now have an executed collaboration agreement with the BDDEC, which details communication plans for each part of the project. The research team will collaborate with BDDEC throughout the duration of the project and work together to share findings with interested stakeholders and community members. In addition, at WiseGuyz training in Inuvik in September 2022, the team also invited all participating community and school members to join the research team if they were interested (in whatever capacity and way worked for them), now or later. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from March 20, 2023 to December 31, 2023.