396P
COMMUNITY-BASED RESEARCH IN ACTION: THE CALGARY "YOUTH, HEALTH, AND THE STREET" STUDY
N Huffey1, E Berndt1, S Patten2, Z Barton1, C Worthington3, B MacLaurin3
¹AIDS Calgary Awareness Association; 2Alberta Community Council on HIV; 3University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta
Objectives: To present the collaborative research process being used by AIDS Calgary, a team of Calgary health and street youth serving agencies, Alberta Community Council on HIV (ACCH) staff, and university researchers.
Methods: The "Youth, Health and the Street" Study is designed to describe the spectrum of street-involved youth in Calgary, and explore variations among the different sub-populations of street-involved youth in terms of HIV and health risks, coping mechanisms and service needs. The research process is being documented to assess its successes and challenges.
Results: AIDS Calgary drew together a diverse group of representatives from youth and health agencies to develop a research proposal. With collaboration from researchers at the University of Calgary and support from the ACCH's Research Technical Assistant, funding for the study was secured from CIHR's HIV/AIDS Community-Based Research Program. A survey was designed with participation from all agencies and street youth peer representatives, and pre-tested with 30 street involved youth. A group of research assistants were recruited and contracted from participating street youth agencies in Calgary to conduct the surveys with street-involved youth. Their familiarity with the street youth culture will enhance the engagement of a diverse group of street-involved youth. Following training, research assistants are conducting surveys with 300 street-involved youth in Calgary over a three-month period. Plans are to analyze survey data collaboratively to develop a street-involved youth typology, and then to conduct in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of 40–50 street-involved youth using the typology classifications to guide participant recruitment.
Conclusions: Collaboration among those with different perspectives on services creates research that is both directly useful for program planning and theoretically rich. Results will be used as a basis for a reciprocal planning process among youth, health and HIV services organizations in order to further develop services for the street-involved youth population.