Research Summary:
Are you a registered social worker in Aotearoa New Zealand?
Social workers possess diverse identities, values, and beliefs and play a critical role in helping clients to obtain information and resources needed to make important life decisions, including ones pertaining to abortion, transgender and non-binary rights, and assisted dying. These contentious subjects require social workers to engage in situations that may clash with their personal values. This proposal is for a unique study of Aotearoa social work practitioners’ and educators’ perspectives on these politicised topics. The researchers aim to work with selected summer scholar students who will participate in three linked studies utilizing qualitative surveys to explore social worker perspectives.
Participation Criteria:
This study seeks to recruit New Zealand-qualified social work practitioners and social work educators. There are no age requirements for completing the questionnaire. However, participants must be qualified and registered social workers, which makes it extremely unlikely that any participants will be under 21.
You are invited to participate in an online questionnaire about social worker views on abortion, transgender rights, and assisted dying. The questionnaire is anonymous and it will take approximately 30-40 minutes to complete. Names and identifying information will not be collected. When you click on the link you will be taken to a Participant Information Sheet with full information and invited to participate. Submission of your questionnaire responses constitutes consent to participating in the research.
Abortion, assisted dying and the rights of transgender and non-binary people are considered by many to be controversial issues. In Aotearoa each of these areas have been subject to recent law change: abortion law has been decriminalised, self-identification for most transgender people is now legal, and assisted dying is permitted under certain circumstances.
The questionnaire will ask you about your thoughts on these topics, the law changes, and any education you may have had in these areas.
Access the survey here
APPROVED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND HUMAN PARTICIPANTS ETHICS COMMITTEE ON 8/9/23 for 3 years, Reference Number 26344
Principal Investigator: Liz Beddoe e.beddoe@auckland.ac.nz
Date published: 14 September 2023
Date closes: 2 November 2023
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