This project involved two streams of data collection. The first stream involved administration of a survey to HSFW in seven Canadian cities: Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Thunder Bay, Moncton, Fredericton, and Saint John. This survey was previously developed to measure traumatic stress levels experienced by HSFW pre-pandemic and included a combination of original content and validated assessment tools including the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5; Weathers et al., 2013) and the Professional Quality of Life Measure (ProQoL; Stamm, 2015). (We should link these on the website since they are both publicly accessible). The survey was adapted to meet the needs of the current project by adding content that was COVID-specific including the staff’s assessment of the organization’s preparedness and response to COVID. Two additional measures, the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) and Resiliency Questionnaires, were added to the survey to aid in the understanding of risk and protective factors for the development of occupational traumatic stress symptoms.
Collaboration with executive directors and managers within homelessness organizations was critical to the methodological strength of this project. To protect the soundness of the data, it was imperative to administer the survey to staff on work time, to ensure employees were completing the survey while in a “work frame of mind” to reduce the likelihood of extraneous factors (i.e., other stressors) affecting their responses. As such, our team collaborated directly with the organizations to administer the survey to HSFW in the context of a pre-arranged staff meeting or session coordinated specifically for this purpose. In previous waves of data collection, a research team member would visit the homeless organization and meet with staff directly, introducing the study and administering the survey to willing participants. The ever-changing COVID restrictions and social distancing requirements limited the ability for our team to utilize this approach for the current study. However, we followed the same protocol ensuring fidelity; a member from our research team would meet with the staff virtually to introduce the study and the survey was completed either online via a secure link, or on paper copies that were arranged for contactless pickup and drop-off.
The second stream of data collection involved interviews with key administrators (ideally CEOs or Executive Directors) who could speak to the ways in which COVID affected service provision and staff within the organization. Interview participants were asked about the organization’s preparedness and response to COVID, perceived challenges, implemented solutions and adaptations to service provision and staff protocols. Additional questions centralized around staff responses; specifically, the interviewer asked about changes in morale, increases in sick/stress leave, staff recognition efforts and any notable increase in requests for support (e.g. mental health supports, child care). The interviews were all completed over Zoom of Microsoft teams and took approximately 45 minutes to one hours to complete.