There are many options for the level of participation. The main two are:

• An online survey (approximately 30 minutes)
• An interview with you or you and some of your colleagues (approximately 90mins)

Ideally we will speak to a range of participating individuals and organisations.

Get in touch to make a plan with us.

Because you are a representative or employee of an outdoor or nature-based service/program.

Get in touch with us: Email or call to arrange the next steps.

You might be the first person in your organisation to look at this information or you might have been asked by your organisation to participate. In either case getting in touch with the research team is likely the best next step.

This research project forms the substantive component for a PhD in Public Health. It is a joint project between the college of health and medicine and the college of science and engineering. There is no additional funding for this project.

There are no direct benefits, but we hope that this research will benefit all current and emerging outdoor health services. We anticipate that the knowledge produced will be a valuable resource to refine and improve existing or emerging outdoor health services. It will also contribute to the development of practice and knowledge frameworks for quality assurance across the emerging sector.

There are no foreseeable or anticipated risks of harm from participation in this study beyond the inconvenience of time. You will not be asked to discuss anything that is distressing or uncomfortable for you. Face to face interviews will not take place if any party is unwell, and COVID-19 safety guidelines will be adhered to at all times.

You or the service you are employed by are free to withdraw without consequence anytime during the research project, up until four weeks following the interview date. After this time your interview information may have been included in the analysis and it will be difficult to separate and remove it entirely. Your details will, however, have been de-identified so you cannot be identified from your answers. We will also remove the name of the service and any specific geographic information from the collected data before analysis. We will be inviting participants to review the information they provide following the activities listed above, and again after the information for your program/service has been combined. Our intent with this process is that every participant can endorse both their contribution and the collective knowledge that is generated about your service/program.

The survey, interview and focus group data will only include minimal personal date such as your name and preferred contact method. Recordings and transcripts will be stored on a University of Tasmania server for five years from the date of the project completion. This server is password-protected and only accessible to the researchers of this study. Data will be destroyed at the end of the five years.

All data in this study will be made anonymous before it is included in analysis. Your data will be compared to and synthesised with data from other participating services. The results will be discussed in public forums and may be published. You will have the opportunity to review your interview transcript and contributions to focus groups before the analysis occurs. If you wish to be notified of the final results of this study, please let the researchers know at the time of interview.

If you have any queries, concerns, or issues with this study, please feel free to contact Ben Knowles or Pauline Marsh on the contact details (right).

This study has been approved by the University of Tasmania Human This study has been approved by the University of Tasmania Human Research Ethics Committee. If you have concerns or complaints about the conduct of this study, you can contact the Executive Officer of the HREC (Tasmania) Network on (03) 6226 6254 or email [email protected]. The Executive Officer is the person nominated to receive complaints from research participants. Please quote 25013.