Community Consultation Update: A Successful Start for Focus Group Discussions
The HLSL Consultation of the English-Speaking community of the Lower Saint Lawrence, which officially began in Autumn 2022, is well underway! Both community surveys, including demographic and health questionnaires, have high participation rates, and key informant interviews are in the final stages. At last, Focus Group Discussions have begun! Despite initial struggles with scheduling, our Research Team has successfully completed two Focus Group Discussions thus far.
A practice Focus Group was held with staff only on July 18th at the Heritage Resource Center in Métis-sur-Mer. A great opportunity to involve other members of the Heritage team in testing and revising our Focus Group script and questionnaire. Lots of fun was had by all!
A Focus Group Discussion for summer residents of the eastern and central Lower Saint Lawrence was held on July 21st at the Métis Resource Center, which was very well attended. We’d like to thank all participants for the stimulating discussions and insightful comments. The Research Team’s enthusiasm about our work went up a few notches that sunny afternoon!
Another Focus Group Discussion took place at St. James Anglican Church in Cacouna on August 26th – the first of two meetings planned for residents of the western part of the region. We’d like to thank the warden and summer clergy of St. James for inviting us into their beautiful church and parsonage, and encouraging our work. Our rich discussions provided much food for thought regarding the needs and resources of English speakers and exciting ideas for future programming in the western part of our region, which HLSL hopes to reach out to further in the future. What a privilege!
Additional Focus Group Discussions are planned throughout the region. If you would like to participate in a Focus Group Discussion in the context of HLSL’s Consultation of the English-Speaking Community of the Lower Saint Lawrence, but have not yet done so, or if you have any other questions about this or any other aspect of our study, please contact Alexandra Rao at (581) 814-0794 or arao@heritagelsl.ca.
