Consent to Act as Subject in a Research Study

You are being invited to participate in a research study on accessibility of services to BME and LGBT survivors of sexual violence, conducted by MaryFrances Lukera, Gillian Love, Grazia De Michele, Eva Herrera, Christina Glakoumidaki, and Valentina Cartei. Before you decide if you would like to participate or not, please read the following information about the aims of the study and what participating will involve for you.

Description of Study: This study focuses on identifying the barriers that BME and LGBT people face in accessing services for people who have survived sexual violence. We are also working to identify ways of either making these services more inclusive or creating a new service BME and LGBT survivors.



Risk:  This questionnaire is designed to gather information about how professionals can engage successfully with BME and LGBT individuals in general, but some questions will be specifically about your experience as a professional in working with BME and LGBT survivors of sexual violence. If you have experienced or witnessed sexual violence yourself, memories about it might come back to you as you talk about your experiences of offering support. Please seek therapeutic support if you find the memories to be overwhelming. A list of support services can also be found at:

 http://www.survivorsnetwork.org.uk/content/directory-local-services

Benefits: Just as often, ‘telling one’s story’ can be liberating, can lift depression, and help decrease the feeling of isolation. Your answers will also help us in making sexual violence recovery services more inclusive for people of all genders.

Rights: You have the right to refuse to fill out this questionnaire; to stop at any time; to not fill out any part of the questionnaire that you do not want to answer. You have the right to complete anonymity, and your information will be kept 100% confidential. Your information will never be seen individually but only in the aggregate with other participants’ responses, and on Survey Monkey we have disabled our ability to track down each response by the computer addresses. You have the right to get the results of this study, without cost. These can be obtained by sending a separate email request to the investigator at myvoice@survivorsnetwork.org.uk

If you chose to take part in this study, you will be asked a series of questions. Some will be multiple choice and some will have space for you to write in your own answers. The questionnaire should take about 15 minutes.

To thank you for your participation, you can also enter a £50 Amazon voucher prize draw. If you would like to enter the prize draw, please provide us with your email address at the end of the questionnaire. This will not be linked to your questionnaire responses. Only the research team will have access to your email address and this record will be deleted after the project has ended.

What will happen to the finished study? We intend to use the results of this study to improve sexual violence recovery services in Brighton so that they are more accessible to people from BME and LGBT backgrounds. We also intend to publish this study in an academic journal so that others can make use of our findings.

If you have any questions about the study, please contact the researchers at: myvoice@survivorsnetwork.org.uk or using the contact details for Survivors ’Network above.

The research team:
MaryFrances Lukera, Gillian Love, Grazia De Michele, Eva Herrera, Christina Glakoumidaki, and Valentina Cartei (Chief Investigator)      

By continuing with this questionnaire, you:
confirm that you have read and understood the information above
agree that all your answered can be used as research data (in anonymsed format)
certify that you are 18 years or older.