Marco histórico de la educación ambiental

The focus group questions were developed collaboratively between Victoria Police and Victoria University. Input on draft focus group questions was sought from relevant stakeholders, including target CALDB community members and young people from the selected target groups.

The focus group discussion was designed around a range of themes; questions were sufficiently unstructured to facilitate participants’ voices and to gather information that may not have been previously anticipated while also being structured enough to keep participants’ discussion related to the topics of the research questions. This issue is particularly important in research work with people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (Hughes and DuMont, 1993). The ordering of themes and questions was designed to build confidence and comfort with the process as the focus themes developed, so that when difficult or potentially confrontational issues and topics were discussed, participants had already experienced some trust and confidence within the group process. The focus groups began with non-challenging questions that were related to young people’s

perceptions of their own personal experience (spending time together in groups in their local area), then moved on to more challenging issues around perceptions of safety in public and gang activity in the region, peaking with discussion around conflict, violence and crimes against the person in public places. Questions concluded with a more positive and future-oriented focus on how relationships with the police could be improved based on young people’s perceptions of current relationships with police in the locality, and on how young people and police might work together to improve community safety more generally. Using this structure, the focus groups used 17 questions across seven key themes in discussion (See Appendices for questions).The themes covered were:

Young people in groups

Perceptions of lack of safety in the community Groups or gangs?

Young people and conflict/violence

Young people and crimes against the person in public places

Relationships between young people, the police and community safety Working together to improve community safety

The focus group methodology was sensitive to gender differences amongst young people, and ran both mixed- gender and gender-specific groups to assist in identifying and analysing any significant gender-based differences in response to the study’s focus on young people, community safety, youth and violent crime, and improving community safety and relationships between young people and the police.

In keeping with best-practice research methods for research conducted with young people (Gibson 2007), and CALDB communities (Huer and Saenz, 2003), community-based research assistants were employed on the project to guide the recruitment and assist with the conduct and facilitation of the focus groups, including translation and interpretation in participants’ first or primary languages as required. Four community research assistants were employed, one of each gender from each of the two relevant communities. This enabled us to successfully recruit young people within these sometimes hard-to-access communities and to run single-gender and mixed-gender focus groups in both community samples in a fashion that was sensitive to the cultural needs of both communities. Where needed, interpretation and translation for both questions and responses was provided during the focus groups by the relevant community-based research facilitators.

4.2.1

Procedure

A total of 58 young people were recruited for participation in the Don’t Go There focus groups: 44 from the two CALDB communities of Sudanese and Pacific Islander young people, and 14 from the general population15–19 year old cohort in Brimbank for a purpose-specific focus group on youth-police consultation mechanisms.

Recruitment of participants for the focus groups took place through mobilising existing local networks and organisational contacts (schools, AMES, community groups) in the target communities combined with chain- referral sampling. This method is useful for a research focus that seeks to tap into a smaller or limited subset of the general population who may be less visible or otherwise difficult to identify or contact (Brown, 2003; Streeton, Cooke and Campbell, 2004; Grupetta, 2005). The community research assistants were provided with an information sheet that explained the project aims and which outlined the format of the focus group. They then canvassed the local community through church gatherings, sports clubs and existing networks, inviting youth participation by verbally explaining the survey and providing a copy of the plain language information sheet for participants.

From March to October 2008, 44 young people between the ages of 15 and19 participated in five scheduled focus groups of 7-10 each, purposively selected for residence in the Brimbank LGA, age range, gender, and membership of either the Sudanese or Pacific Islander communities. The groups were run as follows:

1. All-male Sudanese focus group 2. Mixed gender Sudanese focus group 3. All-female Sudanese focus group 4. All-male Pacific Islander focus group 5. Mixed gender Pacific Islander focus group

A sixth group of all-female Pacific Islanders was planned but despite extensive networking and outreach through our community liaison support workers and other community-based contacts, we were unable to recruit the necessary numbers from amongst Pacific Islander young women for the all-female group. This was primarily because we could not guarantee the required condition of residency and/or school attendance in Brimbank for this final group of participants. However, we gained a further three Pacific Islander young women as part of the general population group of participants in the sixth focus group on ongoing consultation mechanisms for police and young people in the community, bringing the total number of Pacific Islander female participants across all focus groups to eight.

The sixth focus group of 14 young people in the same age group but drawn from general community backgrounds was held in June 2009. The general population focus group included 8 male and 6 female participants. All were Brimbank residents and were recruited through Visy Cares Youth Hub in Sunshine. Because this was a general population focus group, no culturally targeted recruitment was undertaken. However, the range of cultural diversity within Brimbank was well represented by a variety of young people from Asian, Anglo-Australian, Middle Eastern, Pacific Islander and African backgrounds.

Below is a breakdown of all focus group participants by cultural background and gender. Table 3: Focus group participants by cultural background and gender

Cultural group and gender Number of participants

Sudanese males 14

Pacific Islander males 13

Sudanese females 12

Pacific Islander females 5

Mixed gender general community 141

Total 58

1_{8 males and 6 females - African, Anglo-Australian, Middle Eastern, and Pacific Islander background young people, including 3 Pacific Islander females} A senior researcher and 1-2 community research assistants from the Sudanese and/or Pacific Islander communities facilitated each focus group. Each focus group ran for approximately 1½ -2 hours. They were set up in locations that were easily accessible to participants by public transport (Victoria University’s St Albans campus, local churches and at the St Albans Library) and held on weekends and Friday afternoons to maximise participation. In some instances, cab charges were used to transport participants to the focus group venue. At the beginning of the focus groups, participants were reassured about confidentiality and their informed consent to participate was obtained. As the focus groups were recorded, consent was also obtained for this to occur and participants were assured that only the chief investigators and project officer would have access to the tapes.

5

REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE SURVEY FINDINGS

This chapter provides an analysis of the survey data, reflecting the areas investigated through the survey: Demographics; Perceptions of community safety; Young people in groups; Young people and violent crime; Young people and police; and Working together to improve community safety.