You are being invited to take part in a research study.
The Institute of Public Care (IPC) at Oxford Brookes University has been asked by Welsh Government and the National Adoption Service to evaluate the impact of the national Adoption Support Framework.
The evaluation will run from 2020 to 2021 and will help to better understand what kind of support works for families in different circumstances.
You have been invited to participate along with all other adoptive parents in Wales (we are aiming for a sample of at least 300). With your consent, the evaluation will involve participating in an online survey of your experiences of seeking and getting help, and the impact of any support received on you and your family. The survey will take approximately 20 minutes to complete.
The findings will be written up into at least one report to be published on-line by the National Adoption Service for Wales and by Welsh Government. They may also subsequently be published in a relevant research journal.
At no stage will the identity of participating families or family members be revealed, either directly or indirectly, in reporting.
At no stage will researchers at IPC share your name, contact details or any other information that might reveal your identity. The only exception to this is if, based on something you share, researchers believe someone is at risk of harm. All of the information shared by you will be stored safely for the duration of the evaluation and destroyed safely 1 year after the final report is published.
It is up to you to decide whether or not to take part in the research. You are also free to withdraw at any time up until the point that the data is analysed, without giving a reason. This will not affect in any way the support you might receive in the future or your legal rights.
The research study has been approved by the Oxford Brookes University Research Ethics Committee. If you would like any further information about the evaluation or have any questions or concerns about it or would like to make a complaint, please contact Katy Burch who is the lead evaluator at the Institute of Public Care on 01225484088 or kburch@brookes.ac.uk. If you have any concerns about the way in which the study is being conducted, you should contact the chair of the University ethics committee at ethics@brookes.ac.uk.
If you have started the survey but not yet finished it, please do so as soon as you can and before 25th November at the latest. If you decided to ‘save and continue later’, you should have received an automatically generated Smart Survey email with a link back into it. If you can’t find the email, it may have gone into your spam folder by accident – perhaps worth checking there.
If you haven’t yet started the survey but would like to do so, please click on the link below.
https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/AdoptionSupportWalesFamilySurvey/
The survey will close on 25th November 2020