Mapping FASD Training Opportunities in Canada: An Environmental Scan

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1 Introduction

The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CCSA), in response to a request by the Public Health Agency of Canada's (PHAC) Division of Childhood and Adolescence, has undertaken a survey of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) training/events across Canada.

In recent years, an increasing number of government and non-government organizations have committed to playing a role in reducing the harms associated with substance use during pregnancy. Accompanying this commitment has been a significant increase in the volume of educational and training events on this topic.

In its capacity as the lead federal department in advancing action on FASD, PHAC has a need to better understand the volume and nature of educational and training activities on this issue. The primary use of the survey will be to assist in planning activities around FASD nationally.

This is the first known national scan of FASD training/events, including one-time conferences. It covers a brief period, April 1, 2004 to March 31, 2005, and restricts the definition of training (in part) by length to those that are a minimum of three hours' duration.

The bilingual online survey contained four questions that gathered descriptive information on the respondent organization and 18 questions that asked for specific information about the training/event. Most of the questions were close-ended, offering pre-set responses, with options for providing additional information through an “other” category. The survey collected information of a general nature that would assist in providing a basic description of the training/event. No responses were completed in French.

The purpose of this report is to present PHAC with the results of the survey, including a limited data analysis and comprehensive inventory of educational and training events.

The project began on January 6, 2005 with a meeting to discuss timelines and tasks. Participants at the meeting included the CCSA Project Manager, PHAC FASD Team Project Lead, and a representative from the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB). The meeting was also an opportunity to review the draft survey instrument that had been developed by the CCSA.

The following implementation steps guided the project following the meeting:

• Design survey with input from PHAC and partners
• Revise survey
• Translate survey
• Create database of respondents
• Develop cover letter
• Revise and translate cover letter
• Email survey
• Transmit two email reminders encouraging completion
• Close survey to responses
• Generate first round of responses

The survey design, revision, final approval and translation were completed in mid-February. The survey was initially designed as a Word document, and the intent was to send it out by email to the list of respondents and manually enter the data. A suggestion by the evaluation consultant led the Project Team to consider other options, in particular, an online survey. This option appealed to the team, primarily for the ease of data collection and analysis, and so it was agreed that online was the preferred approach for accessing respondents.

Once the survey items and order had been finalized, CCSA staff and their external web design partners adapted the survey for distribution online. Several programming glitches delayed the process prior to the survey launch. Once the online environment had been tested and was available in both official languages, a survey cover letter was prepared and email addresses were entered into the database. The cover letter and link to the online survey were sent out on March 10 by email. The initial response rate was slow and disappointing (only 89 out of 380 possible responses by April 1 - a 23% response rate). Follow-up emails were sent out at two intervals: 10 days after the initial email was sent and a second one approximately 2.5 weeks after the initial email. A final appeal for responses was sent on April 1. At that point, 118 responses had been received, increasing the response rate to 31%. The survey link was closed on April 8 at which point 142 responses had been received, giving a 37% response rate. As indicated later in this report, the timing of the survey may have affected the response rate, causing it to be lower, since March is a very busy time for organizations and individuals. People are often away for school break, which sometimes spans a three-week period nationally. Organizations are often completing year-end tasks and the survey may have arrived at an inopportune time for participation.

The respondent list was drawn primarily from the CCSA's Directory of FASD Information and Support Services in Canada (n=279). The Directory includes the names, contact information and a brief description of individuals and organizations that provide an FASDrelated service or initiative in Canada. While some of the organizations listed provide services exclusively for FASD, some provide service as part of a larger service delivery capability. The Directory is available electronically and in print form (limited quantities) and is free of charge.

A survey respondent list was created containing the email address for every entry that was listed in the Directory. At the time of the survey, the Directory was being updated. A test email was sent out to identify any errors in addresses and to allow an opportunity to obtain the correct information before the survey was launched.

In addition to the entries listed in the Directory, the list contained approximately 100 additional names of individuals and federal and/or provincial departments that have a mandate to address FASD, and in particular, training in FASD (see Appendix A for resources used to create the respondent list).

This project included an Aboriginal component that was intended to gather similar data from the First Nations community on training initiatives in FASD. The First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada (FNFCS) has been contracted by First Nations and Inuit Health Branch to design the survey and collect the data. Data from the two surveys were to be jointly reported on and to form an integrated picture of FASD training opportunities across Canada.

As of the writing of this report, the Aboriginal component of the survey had been initiated, the survey instrument designed and an email message sent to respondents that contained a link to the survey at the FNFCS website. The survey is available in English and French, and the FNFCS is working with the Pauktuutit Inuit Women's Association to obtain responses among the Inuit community.

Results from both surveys are intended, along with other measures, to jointly inform the planning process for PHAC and its stakeholder groups in the area of FASD training supports.

The survey instrument was designed around the following parameters, which were part of the original funding proposal:

FASD-related: means that the learning objectives for the event must be predominantly concerned with reducing the harms associated with prenatal alcohol or other substance exposure through either:

• prevention activity (e.g. addressing youth, child-bearing women)
• identification activity (e.g. screening, diagnosis of affected persons)
• interventions with affected persons/families

Education/training: is defined as all programs intended to impart knowledge and/or skill to persons in or outside the delivering organization, such as orientation sessions, workshops, seminars, post-secondary courses and conferences, that:

• are at least 1/2 day (3 hours') duration
• have a professional development or community development aim
• and (with the exception of conferences) have been/will be delivered more than once during the period in question

CCSA's Evaluation Consultant developed a draft of the survey (see Appendix B) for review by the Project Team. It was revised and submitted for translation. The survey then needed to be re-formatted into an online version because it was to be distributed to respondents' email address for direct reply online. Several delays occurred in the creation of the instrument.

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