ATTACHMENT B - Informed consent

ATTACHMENT B

Informed Consent Statement

Interview Consent Form

About the Study

You have been randomly selected to participate in an important research study called the Study of Community Family Life. This study is being conducted by RTI International for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. The purpose of this study is to provide researchers with an understanding of how people build and keep close relationships with the important people in their lives. You were selected for the study because you have either participated in the study before or you recently took classes on marriage or family relationships.

Participation in the Study

If you decide to be in the study, we will ask you to complete an interview. The interviewer will read questions from a computer screen and type your answers into the computer. The interviewer will ask you questions about your relationships with family members and friends, your attitudes about marriage and relationships, advertising you may have seen about family relationships, your job, and services you may have received. We will also ask you some questions that might make you uncomfortable, such as questions about domestic violence and infidelity. However, you may refuse to answer any of the questions asked in the interview. The interview will take about 45 minutes to complete and you will be paid $25 for your participation. If you decide to participate, you will be one of about 5,100 people involved in the study.

Voluntary Participation

The choice of whether to participate in this study is completely up to you. No one will be upset or angry if you decide not to participate. If you decide to participate in the study, you may refuse to answer any of the questions asked in the interview. Just tell the interviewer you want to skip a question and the interviewer will go to the next question.

Benefits and Risks of Study Participation

There are no physical risks to you for participating in this study. It is possible that some questions might make you uncomfortable or upset. Remember that you may refuse to answer any of these questions. There are no benefits to you for participating in this study; however, the results of this study may benefit the public by helping to inform policymakers on issues of family relationships.

Privacy

We will keep what you tell us in the interview private to the extent allowed by law. After you complete the interview, the interviewer will not be able to look at your answers again. Only the researchers at RTI International will see the information we have collected from study participants. We will combine your information with information from all of the other participants to create group statistics. Also, we will do the interview in a private setting where no one can overhear your answers. We will create an identification (ID) number and use it instead of your name to identify your interview in the computer, which will prevent anyone from finding our what your answers were. Although every effort will be made to keep research records private, there may be times when federal or state law requires the disclosure of such records, including personal information. This is very unlikely, but if disclosure is ever required, RTI will take all steps allowable by law to protect the privacy of personal information.

Exceptions to Privacy

There are some exceptions to our promise to keep this information private. If you tell us that you are in immediate danger or that you intend to harm yourself or someone else, we may need to inform the appropriate authorities according to state and local law.

Future Contacts

RTI may contact you by phone after you have completed the interview to ask a few brief questions about the work and conduct of the interviewer who visited your home. We may also contact you again through mailings once a year and interview you again in 18 months. If you are contacted in the future, you will be able to make a decision about participating at that time after we tell you about the study.

Questions

If you have any questions about the study or your involvement in it, you may call Ms. Kristine Fahrney at RTI toll-free at

1-800-334-8571, extension 25531. If you have any questions related to your rights as a survey participant, you may call RTI’s Office of Research Protections toll-free at 1-866-214-2043.

Do you have any questions that might help you decide whether or not you want to participate in the study? Would you like to participate?

Recordings

We are using a special quality control system on this project. The system runs on the computer and will record what you and I say to each other during several different parts of the interview. Neither you nor I will know when the computer is recording what we say. The recording will be reviewed by people at RTI to monitor my work, and will be kept confidential. You may participate in the interview even if you do not consent to the recordings. May we use this quality control system during your interview?