Flinders University
SOCIAL AND BEHAVIOURAL RESEARCH ETHICS COMMITTEE / Office Use Only
Code: / Project Number:
Yunggorendi / Y N

APPLICATION FOR ETHICAL APPROVAL OF SOCIAL OR

BEHAVIOURAL RESEARCH INVOLVING HUMAN SUBJECTS

IMPORTANT – refer to the ‘Application Submission Process’ and ‘Application Submission Guide’ documents
available from SBREC Submission Forms, Guidelines and Templates web pagebefore completion of the form.
Submit completed form and all relevant attachments in PDF format to

New Ethics Application / x
Response to Deferral Notice / Project Number
Research Involving Children or Vulnerable Adults
If you are intending to conduct research involving children or vulnerable adults you are required to have undergone a Criminal History Check. A set of procedures has been agreed between the University and the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion (DCSI) Screening and Licensing Branch. For specific information about these procedures please refer to the Research Involving Children or Vulnerable Adults webpage and the Criminal History Check Procedures webpage.
Accordingly, Section H (Certification and Signatures) asks whether the research will involve children and vulnerable adults and if yes, asks for confirmation that a current Criminal History Check is in place.

A. PROJECT TITLE and TIMEFRAME

A1.Project Title

Neighbourhood Homes

A2.Plain language, or lay, title

What factors support refugees to gain and maintain tenancies in the private rental sector?

A3.Period for which approval is sought

Projects may not commenceuntil formal written notification of final ethics approval has been provided.

Date data collection is due to commence: / 09/08/2012
Or following approval:
Date data collection is expected to be completed: / 29 August 2014
Date project is expected to be completed: / 12 December 2014

B.RESEARCHER/SUPERVISOR INFORMATION

Correspondence regarding ethics approval will be emailed to the Principal Researcher with copies to all other researcherslisted on the application unless otherwise indicated.Please note that is a requirement that all supervisors receive a copy of all correspondence relating to the project.

Principal Researcher (student or staff member)

Title: / First Name: / Family Name:
Mr / Joe / Bloggs
Status: / Staff: / Flinders Uni Student: / x / Associate:
Flinders Uni Student No.
(Principal researcher only) / 123456 / Degree enrolled in:
(please do not use acronyms) / PhD Social Work
Supervisor(s)
(also list as researcher below) / Dr Jane Doe – Social Work
Dr James Dean – Social Work
School/Department/Organisation: / Social Work and Social Planning / Social and Policy Studies
Postal Address: / School of Social and Policy Studies
Social Sciences South
GPO Box 2100, Adelaide
South Australia 5001
Phone: / +61 8 8201 1111
0400-000-000 / Fax: / Email: /
Researcher 2/Supervisor
Title: / First Name: / Family Name:
Dr / Jane / Doe
Status: / Staff: / x / Flinders Uni Student: / Associate:
Copies of correspondence required / Yes / x / No
School/Department/Organisation: / Social Work and Social Planning / Social and Policy Studies
Postal Address: / School of Social and Policy Studies
Social Sciences South
GPO Box 2100, Adelaide
South Australia 5001
Phone: / +61 8 8201 1111 / Fax: / Email: /
Researcher 3/Supervisor
Title: / First Name: / Family Name:
Dr / James / Dean
Status: / Staff: / x / Flinders Uni Student: / Associate:
Copies of correspondence required / Yes / x / No
School/Department/Organisation: / School of Medicine / Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity.
Postal Address:
Phone: / +61 8 8201 1111 / Fax: / Email: /

ALLQUESTIONS SHOULD BE ANSWERED IN THE SPACES PROVIDED.

ATTACHMENTS IN LIEU OF RESPONSE (WITH NOTATIONS TO ‘SEE ATTACHED’) ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE.

C.PROJECT DETAILS

C1.Brief outline of:
Athe project:

In the absence of immediate and sustainable housing solutions in the home-purchase or social housing sectors, there is an assumption by the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) that resettled humanitarian migrants will find housing in the private rental market. This assumption stands in sharp contrast to equally strongly held opinions of many property managers and landlords in the private rental sector. That is, that the housing they provide is a commercial service with little room to accommodate the cultural, linguistic, familial, financial and immigration characteristics of many humanitarian migrants. The housing needs of humanitarian migrants are thus viewed by many stakeholders as being exceedingly difficult, if not impossible to accommodate sustainably within the private rental sector.

Traditionally, the provision of housing support services, including financial housing-support is under the jurisdiction of the Australian federal and state governments. What these systems fail to address are the complexities of gaining and maintaining access to the private rental sector; a market where personal preferences, past experience, short-term investment goals and profit-driven decision making dominates.

There exists however, both an opportunity and a need to examine the contributions made by stakeholders on a local scale towards the promotion of social inclusion of humanitarian migrants in the private rental sector. The purpose of this study is therefore to generate information that contributes to our understanding of the present manifestations and future possibilities of local solutions to the difficulties faced by all stakeholders in the housing of humanitarian migrants in the private rental sector. These phenomena will be studied in detail within the local council areas of Salisbury and Playford.

Bsignificance:

Stable housing is often cited as an important predictor and determinant of the successful resettlement of humanitarian migrants. Without adequate housing, humanitarian migrants experience greater difficulty in the areas of employment, education, social participation as well as mental and physical health. It is acknowledged that Australia’s affordable housing crisis cannot be solved without a vast expansion of social housing and/or increased regulation of the private rental sector. However, this study aims to contribute to our understanding of how local efforts can ameliorate the challenges stakeholders face in the housing of refugees in the private rental sector. The research aims to investigate these opportunities within the current confines of high housing purchase prices, a small community housing sector, a shrinking public housing sector and a scantily regulated private rental sector. Therefore, this research aims to contribute to organisational and public policy debates on how the private rental sector could be more inclusive of humanitarian migrants in a way that is of maximum benefit to all stakeholders. Furthermore, the study will review widely held views that the private rental market has little room for accommodating the social, legal, economic and cultural status of humanitarian migrant tenants.

Research into the juncture of humanitarian migrants and the private rental sector that incorporates the views of all relevant stakeholders is lacking in South Australia. Moreover, the explicit comparative approach to collecting and interpreting stakeholder views is unique to this study. In this way, the project acknowledges the existence of the often conflicting needs and strongly held views of all stakeholders and makes genuine inquiries into the space available for compromise. This study is further distinguished by its focus on the present contributors to the inclusion of refugees in the private rental market, with a specific focus on a local context. Anecdotal evidence has shown that sustainable tenancy outcomes have risen out of service providers’ efforts to build relationships with property managers and landlords in order to advocate for their clients. Moreover, local governments are increasingly displaying their interest in playing a distinct role in the resettlement of refugees, with some even becoming Refugee Welcome Zones (as registered with the Refugee Council of Australia.

Cresearch objective(s):
No. / Research objective
To compare stakeholder opinions about what constitutes inclusivity in the private rental sector and what conditions are required to achieve it.
To explain how local networks, relationships, principles and practices are being used to facilitate the sustainable private rental tenancies of humanitarian migrants.
To illustrate the experiences that humanitarian migrants with large families have in seeking to meet their housing needs in the private rental sector.
To generate a best practice model for local governments to promote the inclusivity of humanitarian migrants in the local private rental sector.
To identify how the policies and practices of key governmental and representative bodies can best aid local efforts to support the sustainable housing of humanitarian migrants.

*Note: tab across to add new rows for additional research objectives.

C2.Medical or Health Research involving the Privacy Act 1988

Is the research related to medical or health matters?

Yes / Place letter ‘X’ in the relevant box
No / X

If YES, to question (A) below; if NO, go to item C4.

AWill personal information be sought from the records of a Commonwealth Agency?
Yes
No

If YES, complete Part A of the Appendix ‘Privacy Legislation Matters’ that relates to compliance with the Guidelines under Section 95 of the Privacy Act 1988.

If NO, go to question (b) below.

BWill health information be sought from a Private Sector Organisation or a health service provider funded by the State Department of Health?
Yes
No

If YES, complete Part B of the Appendix ‘Privacy Legislation Matters’ that relates to compliance with the Guidelines under Section 95 of the Privacy Act 1988.

If you answered ‘NO’ to both (a) and (b) above go to item C4.

C3.Health Research Involving or Impacting Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Peoples
Does your project comprise health research involving Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples?
Yes
No

IMPORTANT
Proposals to conduct health-related research involving Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples or communities in South Australia must also be submitted to the Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia (AHCSA). However, please note that ethics approval from AHCSA will remove the requirement to gain approval from Flinders SBREC, as described in section G1, below.

C4.Project and Data Type
PROJECT TYPE / Research / X / Intend to publish results? identifiable? / Yes / X
Evaluation / No
IF an EVALUATION answer these questions below.
Will participants be identifiable? / Yes
No
Will a course coordinator / lecturer be involved
in conducting the evaluation? / Yes
No
Will a course coordinator / lecturer know who has participated? / Yes
No
Is DATA to be obtained primarily / Quantitative / Qualitative / X
Is information to be sought by / Questionnaire / X / Interview / X
Experiment / Computer / Online
Focus Group / Other / X
Please state:
Field notes, meetings with a critical reference group (advisory group)
Will participants be video or audio recorded or photographed? / Yes / x
No
If YES, please place a letter ‘x’ in the relevant response box or boxes / Video
Audio / x
Photographed
C5.Research Method
Outline of the research method, including what participants will be asked to do
  1. South Australian private rental survey

Web-based questionnaires (produced using Survey Monkey®) will be distributed to property managers and landlords across South Australia. Although participants will be asked if they have firsthand experience of the tenancy of a humanitarian migrant, this will not be made a condition for inclusion in the study, as the participants’ experiences of and views on the issues are considered valuable regardless. Participants will be asked to complete the survey online and return their completed surveys anonymously. Paper-based surveys will be made available upon request.

Property managers and landlords whose work or rental property is located in the Playford or Salisbury local government areas will be asked, as part of the survey, to indicate whether they would like to participate in an interview, and in this case, to provide their contact details.

  1. Semi-structured interviews

Interviews will be conducted with property managers, landlords, service providers, former refugees and refugee claimants. The interviews will be 45-60 minutes in duration, although longer interviews (up to 90 minutes) may be necessary when interpreters are used for interviews.

  1. Critical reference group

Stakeholders will be invited to join the project’s critical reference group. A representative from each of the following participant groups will be sought: local government social planner, property manager, landlord and a settlement service provider. In addition a member from each of the ethnic groups represented amongst the humanitarian migrant participants will be invited to form part of the group. Efforts will be made to support the representation of a broad demographic of humanitarian migrant members in the critical reference group. Participants will be asked to meet on approximately three occasions over the duration of the project and to engage in email and telephone correspondence with the researcher. Members will be asked to:

  • Share their interpretations of the research findings;
  • Provide input on the design of a local government best practice model for the promotion of a multi-culturally inclusive private rental sector;
  • Inform principles and practice in the performance of any actions that arise from the research; and
  • Check that written reports have been sufficiently de-identified.
  1. Participation in refugee housing network meetings, community meetings and local government meetings

The researcher will attend a series of meetings across several networks and organisations. The purpose of attending the meetings will be to inform the researcher of key issues across the various stakeholder groups that may inform the interpretation of results. The research will not steer discussion to unrelated topics, but may seek clarification or extension of themes and issues that arise. In the analytical phase of the research, participation in these meetings may also be used as an opportunity to give and seek feedback about research findings and interpretations. The researcher will not audio-record the meetings and notes taken will not be used as data for the study. The meetings that the researcher is likely to attend are:

Bimonthly meetings of the ASHRA (Agencies Supporting Housing for Refugees and Asylum Seekers) network;

Quarterly meetings of the RHN (Refugee Housing Network);

Relevant Playford and Salisbury local government meetings; and

Relevant ethnic community/association meetings. The meetings attended will depend on the ethnicities of the humanitarian migrant interviewees who end up being recruited

  1. Field notes

The researcher will keep field notes related to interactions with stakeholders as well as any action, intervention or advocacy that eventuates during the course of the study.

C6.Research Objectives
Briefly describe how the information which will be requested from participants addresses the research objectives outlined in item C1(c)

Objective 1

To compare stakeholder opinions about what constitutes inclusion in the private rental sector and what conditions are required to achieve it.

All interview respondents (representing several stakeholder groups) will be asked about their views and experiences in relation to their understanding of what constitutes and contributes to inclusion in the private rental sector. Detailed information from all stakeholder groups is required so that a genuine attempt can be made to ascertain to what extent stakeholders share the same meaning of inclusion and agree on how it can be achieve; and

Landlords and property managers across South Australia will also be asked about their views on inclusion in the private rental sector via a questionnaire. This data will enable comparisons to be made.

Objective 2
To explain how local networks, relationships, principles and practices are being used to facilitate the sustainable private rental tenancies of humanitarian migrants.

The data provided by all stakeholders via all the methods employed in this study will contribute to addressing this objective. However the use of a variety of methods will enable the collection of relevant information across varying geographic scales (local and state level), temporal scales (momentary versus longitudinal data collected via network meetings), stakeholder groups and communication settings (one-to-one, critical reference group and network meetings). This will contribute to the generation of a rich data set and enable triangulation of findings.

Objective 3
To illustrate the experiences that humanitarian migrants with large families have in seeking to meet their housing needs in the private rental sector.

Interviews with former refugees and refugee claimants who are part of large co-habiting families or households will provide firsthand accounts of the difficulties, opportunities, issues and themes associated with this particular demographic; and

Specific questions regarding large families in the interviews and questionnaires with other stakeholder groups will enable the critical interpretation of the factors affecting large families in the private rental sector.

Objective 4
To generate a best practice model for local governments to promote the inclusivity of humanitarian migrants in the local private rental sector.

 Again, the data provided by all stakeholders via all the methods employed in this study will contribute to addressing this objective. Although the contributions of the critical reference group will have a more direct influence on the generation of the model, the views expressed by all stakeholders through a variety of methods will be employed to create this model. Data collected via all methods that relates to barriers and contributors to sustainable private rental strategies for humanitarian migrants, will be especially relevant to meeting this objective.

Objective 5
To identify how the policies and practices of key governmental and representative bodies can best improve local efforts to support the sustainable housing of humanitarian migrants.

Interviews with stakeholders will provide an opportunity for the researcher to check for interviewee’s policy ideas as they discuss issues important to them. It may be difficult to collect the policy views of individual stakeholders in more public or formal contexts.

The information provided via critical reference group and network meetings will likely provide insights of a different nature due to the possibility for discussion of ideas in these contexts.

D.PARTICIPANT INFORMATION

D1.Brief outline of:
AIdentity and Basis for Recruitment
Who will the participants be? What is the basis for their recruitment to the study?

Participants to be recruited will be:

Participant Type / Description
Humanitarian migrants / Former refugees and refugee claimants who have arrived in Australia since 2002 and who have sought private rental housing as a member of a large family or household. For the purposes of this study, a large family will be classed as a co-habiting family with three or more children. However, this study will also include large households of related or unrelated adults (but not those living in rooming houses). A large household is defined as consisting of five or more people.
Service providers / Including resettlement service providers, housing sector service providers and public service employees.
Property managers / Involved in the leasing of residential properties in the private rental market.
Landlords / Owners or joint owners of privately leased residential properties. Landlords may be represented by an agent or be self-managing.

Basis for recruitment