Share your story about trauma-related mental health supports

Transforming Supports is a community-based research project that aims to improve services that provide trauma support to trans and gender-diverse people

This project seeks to understand trans and gender-diverse young people’s experience with mental health and trauma supports so that we can make these services better for our communities.

Many trans and gender-diverse people find that mental health services do not feel helpful, safe, or accessible. When they need support, many TGD people report that there are barriers to accessing the care they need and that when they do connect to services, mental health care is often unhelpful or does not feel safe.

Changing these services begins by hearing what you have to say about this.

This project wants to make trauma-related mental health services safer, more accessible, and more useful to trans and gender-diverse people. We want to hear from you about your experiences, your perspectives, and your priorities for how trauma-related mental health support can be improved for your communities.

Your experience and your perspective matter

By being involved in this project as a research participant you will have a chance to share your experience with trauma-related mental health services and share your perspectives on what could be improved to make these services safer and more accessible to you and other trans and gender-diverse people in your community.

You will have the opportunity to share your perspectives and ideas for how this topic should be researched in the future and have a direct impact on creating research projects that can make meaningful change for your communities. 

Eligibility

You are being invited to participate in a confidential interview with a researcher over zoom video (between 1-2 hours) to share your experiences with accessing and/or attending trauma-related mental health supports.

In order to participate in interviews, you need to:

  • be interested in sharing about your experiences with accessing trauma-related mental health supports

  • identify as trans or gender-diverse (your gender is not cisgender, including but not limited to identities such as: transgender, nonbinary, genderqueer, Two-Spirit, gender fluid, agender, etc.)

  • be aged 19 – 30

  • live in South-Western BC (including but not limited to the Greater Vancouver Area, Vancouver Island, and Gulf Islands)

  • be able to commit to one interview (maximum of 2 hours)

  • have one or both of the following experiences: (for the purpose of this requirement, trauma-related mental health supports includes: individual counselling for trauma or trauma-related concerns; crisis support; group counselling; mental health assessment; psychiatric care; psychological services; and community support groups for trauma-related concerns, such as domestic violence support group; intimate partner violence support group; etc.)

    • have accessed and/or attended trauma-related mental health supports in your community, OR

    • have wanted to access trauma-related mental health supports but could not or did not access them because of barriers

What We Hope to Achieve

Identify recommendations for improving trauma-related mental health care for trans and gender-diverse communities

Identify existing barriers to accessing trauma-related mental health supports for trans and gender-diverse communities

Communicate findings to mental health care providers and organizations so they can better serve trans and gender-diverse communities

Identify the ways that trans and gender-diverse people are finding support for their mental health needs and what feels helpful

Understand and describe what safety means for trans and gender-diverse people in trauma-related mental health care

About the Project

The overall goal of this study is to better understand trans and gender-diverse people’s perspectives and experiences of mental health care within BC.

This research is important because many trans and gender-diverse people have a need for mental health support or but right now there is little research about how to best provide useful, safe, and accessible mental health care, especially trauma-related mental health care, to these communities.

The data you share will be used to improve services for trans and gender-diverse people and promote a better understanding of what trans and gender-diverse people need in their mental health services.

This project also asks you what you think needs to be researched and how you would like to see this happen for future research about mental health care for trans and gender-diverse people.

Findings from this project will be shared with community organizations, services providers, and other trans and gender-diverse community members in order to provide direct and actionable recommendations for improving services for trans and gender-diverse communities

Learn more about the project

How it works

  • blue line icon of a heart

    Most Importantly

    Your participation in this project is completely voluntary and confidential. What you share in the interview will be anonymized (meaning that your name and identifying details will not be shared publicly).

    You can withdraw your consent to participate at any point before or during your interview.

  • Blue line icon of a browser window with a cursor clicking

    1. Sign Up

    In order to sign up, complete a survey form . The survey is used to confirm your eligibility to participate. The answers to these questions are confidential, only to be seen by the project team.

    Within a week of registering, you will be contacted by a member of the research team.

  • Blue line icon of two documents

    2. Pre-Interview

    A member of the research team will confirm a time and date for your interview.

    You will receive a consent form with information about the project and your role. You will have a chance to ask any questions about the process and your role before your interview.

    You will receive the questions before your interview so that you can read them ahead of time if you want to. You can skip any question you don’t want to answer during the interview.

  • blue line Icon of two speech bubbles, one has a question mark

    3. Interview

    You will meet with an interviewer over zoom at your scheduled time. Before the interview starts you will have a chance to meet each other and talk through any questions about the process.

    In the interview, you will be asked questions about what types of services you wanted or used (e.g. counselling, group support, etc.); what your experience was like accessing or attending trauma-related mental health supports; if or how you felt safe while receiving these services; and what you think could be improved to make these services better for you and for other trans and gender-diverse people.

    The interviewer will not ask you direct questions about what experiences led you to need these services.

  • blue line icon of a piece of paper, a pencil, with a star in the top left corner

    4. Post-Interview

    You will receive $95 as an honorarium for your time in the interview and any follow-up contact with the project.

    After your interview, you will be invited to review your transcript as well as the researcher’s analysis of the data. These additional steps are completely optional and are not required if you choose to be interviewed. 

  • blue line icon of three people with a globe beyond them

    5. Knowledge Sharing Event

    At the end of the project, you will be invited to participate in an online knowledge sharing event. At this event, the research team will share a summary of the project findings as well as next steps and future goals for research.

    This event is optional to attend and you won’t be identified as a participant if you attend. If you choose to attend, you will receive a $25 honorarium. 

FAQs

  • Yes you can. You are welcome to be a participant in both parts of the project. You will be asked similar questions in both the interviews and the consultation. The interviews give you more time to share your experiences as the interview will solely be focused on you and your perspectives.

    If you do participate in both activities. We will need to collect your legal name and SIN in order to give you your honorarium for the second event. This is due to a legal limit required by the University to disperse funds over $100. This information will only be shared with the research admin assistant at University of Victoria for the Community-Health Engaged Research team in order to get you your payment. It will only be kept on file for 1 year.

  • Yes, if you participate in an interview your involvement with the project is completely anonymized (i.e. not connected to your name). We will ask you questions about aspects of your identity such as age, gender, etc. but these will not be presented in a way as to identify you in the project. You will have the option to choose how you want to be credited in relation to your quotes such as a pseudonym.

  • Thanks for your interest in this project. This project is inviting only folks who do not identify as cisgender as participants i.e. people who are trans, nonbinary, Two-Spirit, agender, genderqueer, or otherwise gender-diverse.

    If you are cisgender, you are not eligible for this project.

  • After registering, a member of the project team will connect with you to ask about accessibility needs.

    We can provide accommodations such as an ASL interpreter, closed captioning on zoom calls, changing the pacing or timing of the interview, providing written answers instead of talking, or adjusting the format of the interview such as having a support person to help you answer questions.

    The interviews will be done in English. At this time, we cannot provide translators for interviews. We hope to be able to offer this for future research project.

    If there is something would make participating more accessible for you, our team will do our best to provide this.

  • The honorarium offers some compensation for your time and expertise you are sharing with the project.

    Even if you stop your interview early or do not want to complete it once you start, you will receive an honorarium.

    After your interview, you will receive an honorarium of $95 via etransfer. To receive this, you will need to share an email address or phone number that can receive etransfer with the project.

    If you are not comfortable receiving etransfers, we can arrange to give you your honorarium in cash.

  • Talking about our experiences with mental health services can be difficult, particularly when these services haven’t been helpful when we needed them. We are aware that talking about these experiences might bring up some challenging feelings. Because of this, if you participate in an interview, you are welcome to bring a support person with you to the interview or bring an item that helps you feel safer and supported.

    After the interview, you will have the opportunity to have a free debriefing session with a trans-friendly, mental health professional if you need. Your contact with this professional will be completely confidential (even from the project team). You will also be given a list of 2SLGBTQ-friendly resources you can connect with.

    At any point in your involvement with the interview process, you can choose to stop or leave the interview.

  • What you share with this project will be used to better understand trans and gender-diverse people’s experiences with trauma-related mental health services. The project team will look at what all the participants shared with the project and identify themes and main ideas. These will be shared back to the participants, wider trans community, and service providers and organizations that provide trauma-related mental health supports in order to let people know what needs to change and how we can make these services better. Findings from this project will be shared in a variety of formats including on this website, in community reports, in academic publications, and at presentations. You will have a chance to share who you think needs to hear about the results of this project and where we should share findings.

    We hope that what you share with this project will guide future projects so that we continue to make mental health services better for our communities.

Register as a participant

Once you register to participate, you will be contacted by a member of our team with more details about next steps. 

~ Interview sign up is now closed ~