A Guide for Community Organizations Revised Feb. 2006
As community based research becomes more prevalent within voluntary sectors, knowledge of research principles and ethics has become essential.
There are three major reasons for this:
First, we need to ensure are treated in accordance with established ethical principles when they are asked to participate in research;
Second, to increase the quality of community based research/evaluation and thereby contribute to knowledge that will inform our service delivery and advocacy efforts;
And third, it is important that community organizations become full partners in the production of that knowledge and play a central role in its discovery.
The research enterprise is a major contributor to social policy and our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
This document aims to share our knowledge around research ethics, to empower us in our work, and to reduce the potential harms that participation in research/evaluation has had on some impoverished and/or criminalized client populations by:
Increasing organizational knowledge of research ethics and principles;
Suggesting policy development and/or amendments to existing policies to increase participant knowledge and informed consent.
BC Coalition of experiential communities 