What is the purpose of the study?

Currently, there is little research in the UK on how sex work laws, rules, and policies that impact sex workers are made. The purpose of this study is to gather current and former street-based sex workers’ experiences, perspectives, and understanding of the creation of these, and then use these to together create a model for their creation that allows the greater inclusion of sex workers in this process. For this study, I am interested in your current understanding and perspective on law, rule, and policy-making, what your experiences might be of these processes, and what you think might help (or not) sex workers take part. We will then be using these ideas to create a plan together for an inclusive creation process. You do not need to have any prior knowledge of law, rules, or policy-making, as we will talk about this during the first workshop.

There will be 4 groups of participants taking part in workshops. Each group will have 2 separate workshops, roughly 5 months apart. Data from these workshops will then be analysed by me, with the plans for a more inclusive policy creation process being combined by me to create a final version.

The second workshop will focus on gaining your feedback on the results of the first round of workshops, so will likely be shorter in length.

Why have I been invited?

You are being invited to take part because you have indicated that you have lived experience of street-based sex work and I recognise sex workers as experts in their own lives with very important and valid knowledge to share. Your insights and knowledge will be invaluable to this project.

Do I have to take part?

It is up to you to decide whether or not to take part.  If you do decide to take part you will be given this information sheet to keep and be asked to sign a consent form. If you decide to take part you are still free to withdraw at any time and without giving a reason. This would not affect your legal rights.

What will happen to me if I take part?

Participation in this research is completely voluntary.

If you decide to be involved in this study, you will be invited to take part in 2 workshops in person at a support organisations’ offices or a community space, whichever is best for you. During the first workshop we will discuss what policy is, how it impacts our every-day lives, policy that is specific to sex work or impacts sex workers more, how laws, rules, and policies are made, what might support (or not) sex workers getting involved in the process, and ultimately designing the best way for sex workers to be included. This will be a closed workshop with only other sex workers and myself as the researcher present. There will be a maximum of 4 other people taking part per workshop. Throughout this we will use paper and post-it notes to brainstorm, note down ideas, or draw anything relevant to discussions, and use some aspects of role play to see if suggestions might work. During the second workshop we will discuss the results from the first workshop. This is to ensure I have understood your contributions correctly, and you are happy with the model for including street-based sex workers in policy-making that I have put together. This is an opportunity for you to correct anything I have misunderstood, give further thoughts that you may not have had the first time, and see what has been created due to your hard work and input. Again, there will be a maximum of 4 other people in the workshop.

The first workshop is expected to last between 2-2.5 hours, and the second 1.5 hours, but this may be longer or shorter depending on how much you wish to discuss. Breaks will always be allowed whenever needed. With your consent, the workshops will be audio recorded so that it can be transcribed (typed up) afterwards. This will be completed by a University of Nottingham approved automatic transcription service and then checked by me. The audio recording will be held securely and deleted at the end of my PhD. The written transcripts of the workshops will be password protected and held securely on the University One Drive system, as will photographs of your physically written/drawn contributions. The paper versions of these will be locked in a cupboard along with any of my own written notes until the end of the project, though they will not include any identifying information.

The anonymised transcripts and pictures will later be uploaded to a database where research data is held for future researchers to access. This could be me after my PhD is finished or other researchers. You will not be identifiable in anything that is uploaded.

Expenses and payments

You will receive a partial reimbursement of £60 per workshop (£120 if you attend both workshops for your group) in recognition of your valuable contributions, time lost, earnings lost, and expenses incurred because of participation

What are the possible disadvantages and risks of taking part?

Your participation in this research is based on your current or past sex working experience. During the workshop you will not be asked to disclose any identifying information about people or places you work with. I only ask that you be mindful of discussing other people and their identifying information (e.g., names). However, any identifying information will be removed from the data set and names changed.

As this study is wanting to find out about your experiences and perspectives on policy creation, it is likely for us to discuss specific organisations or services that you have accessed. This information will be kept strictly confidential and what you say will not be traced back to you, nor will it be directly given to the service spoken about. The name of the service will be changed if quoted in any publications. There should be no impact on your future access to these services.

It can be hard to talk about difficult events in our lives, and although this research will not be asking you directly to discuss these events, it is possible that your reflection on law and policy and the protection (or lack thereof) that this affords sex workers may bring these into our conversation. It is important that you think about whether you are at a point in your life where you feel able to talk about your experiences, and what support you have around you. If you decide to take part, I will be led by you, and you can choose not to discuss certain topics, to take a break, or to stop immediately at any point. I will also stay in the location for some time after each workshop if you feel you need a chat or any support signposting. Should you become upset or distressed during the workshop, I will engage the distress protocol that has been given alongside this information sheet. Should you become upset or distressed after participating, I encourage you to seek assistance by contacting a counselling or support service. Free services that are sex worker friendly include:

Anawim – 0330 056 0065 (freephone helpline)

Turnaround – 07714 252927

RSVP The Red Project – 07432 578105

Horizon SARC – 0330 223 0099

Changing Lives Iris Service – 01902 341 822

Legal risks:

If you disclose an experience to me that you have not reported to the police or another authority, you can do so knowing that it is in complete confidence. I am not obliged to report any experiences to a formal authority. The only exception to this is if you provide information that suggests a child under 18 or a vulnerable adult is at risk of harm, or if the safety of yourself or someone else is at immediate, serious risk. You have been given a separate sheet outlining what will take place should this happen, and I am happy to discuss this further.

Due to the measures put in place to protect your confidentiality in this study, should you decide to report an experience you have discussed during the workshop to a formal authority, the data you have provided in the workshop will be unidentifiable in any legal proceedings or investigations.

What are the possible benefits of taking part?

I cannot promise the study will help you personally, but the information I get from this study may help to improve law and policy-making processes in the UK, ensuring that sex workers like yourself have agency and authority over the discussions surrounding their lives, with the aim for sex workers to be involved in these processes as experts. There is a growing call for collaboration with sex workers when it comes to sex work policy, from sex workers themselves as well as academics, support organisations, and activists. This study aims to build on these calls by developing a sex worker-centred framework of doing this.

What if there is a problem?

If you have a concern about any aspect of this study, you should speak to the researcher (Sam) who will do their best to answer your questions.  If you remain unhappy and wish to complain formally, you can do this by contacting the School Research Ethics Officer. All contact details are given at the end of this information sheet.

Will my taking part in the study be kept confidential?

We will follow ethical and legal practice and all information about you will be handled in confidence. This means that we will not share it without your permission, all information will be stored on password protected computers and storage services, and there will be limited people who can access this.

If you join the study, the data collected for the study will be looked at by Sam. They may also be looked at by authorised people to check that the study is being carried out correctly. All will have a duty of confidentiality (privacy) to you as a research participant and we will do our best to meet this duty.

All personal information (name, location, phone number) which is collected about you during the course of the research will be kept strictly confidential, secured within the University of Nottingham.  Any information about you which leaves the University will have your name and address removed (anonymised) and a unique code will be used so that you cannot be recognised from it. Anonymised data may also be stored in data archives for future researchers interested in this area.

Your personal data (name, telephone number) will be kept until August 2028 so that I can contact you about findings or potential future research (unless you advise us that you do not wish to be contacted).  After this time your data will be disposed of securely.  During this time all precautions will be taken by all those involved to maintain your confidentiality, only Sam will have access to your personal data.

Although what you say in the interview is confidential, should you disclose anything to us which we feel puts you or anyone else at any risk, we may feel it necessary to report this to the appropriate persons. A separate document outlining this has been provided and will be gone through with you by the researcher.

What will happen if I don’t want to carry on with the study?

Your participation is voluntary and you are free to withdraw at any time, without giving any reason, and without your legal rights being affected. If you decide to withdraw, the nature of data collection being a workshop means that the information collected so far will not be possible to extract. However, every effort will be made to not directly quote your contributions in any outputs, with them only being kept in the dataset to provide important context and so to not disrupt the logical flow of the data, which could compromise analysis efforts. I will not be asking participants to identify their written contributions during the workshops, so these will be anonymised straight away with no way of me being able to withdraw specific participants contributions. If you decide you’d like to withdraw and have provided a drawing, I will be able to remove this from the data as it will be linked to your pseudonym. If you decide there are only certain aspects of what you have said that you’d like to remove, you have 14 days to contact me with the details so I can remove these from the transcripts. 

What will happen to the results of the research study?

The results of the study will be used by the researcher for their PhD qualification and may be shared in academic journals, publications, and other community centred outputs like posters, leaflets, or zines which can be shared with sex worker friendly organisations. If you have any ideas for how you would like the findings presented, please let the researcher know. There will also be a website that findings may be published to, and which will be used to update participants and others interested on the progress of the project. You will not be identifiable in any publications; all your data will be anonymised, and a pseudonym (fake name) will be used alongside any quotes from you. You will have the opportunity to pick your own pseudonym if you would like to.

Who is organising and funding the research?

This research is being organised by the University of Nottingham and is being funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Who has reviewed the study?

All research in the University of Nottingham is looked at by a group of people, called a Research Ethics and Integrity Committee (REIC), to protect your interests. This study has received a  Favourable Ethical Opinion by the School of Sociology and Social Policy Research Ethics Committee.

Further information and contact details

Researcher:
Samantha Richardson-Martin (lqysr5@nottingham.ac.uk)

Telephone: 07881 280372 

Supervisors:
Larissa Sandy (lqzljs@nottingham.ac.uk)
Lee Gregory (lqzlg1@nottingham.ac.uk)

Dr Thomas Guiney, Research Ethics & Integrity Officer, REC Chair & Assistant Professor in Criminology. Email: Thomas.Guiney@nottingham.ac.uk; Telephone: 0115 84 68151