Recruitment Email

Hello [Insert Rank/Dr./Mr./Ms. and Last Name],

My name is [insert name], and I am a researcher with RAND, an independent nonprofit institution. The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness has asked RAND to identify which support services and forms of assistance should be available to service member complainants of any form of harassment, including whether or not the current workforce is effectively structured to meet the needs of those service members; and 2) to determine what, if any, additional services and support may be required by military personnel reporting sexual harassment (SH) and identify the most appropriate Department of Defense (DoD) personnel, policies, and practices to meet those needs.

To do so, we are holding focus groups via Microsoft Teams – lasting about one hour. In these discussions, we are gathering information about policies and procedures that are relevant to addressing harassment. We are not asking about, and our discussions do not address, individual incidents of sexual harassment or individuals with whom our discussants may have worked. For more information on this study, please see the attached informed consent form.

Though we are not asking for any personal experiences, this focus group will cover topics that are potentially sensitive, including discussions of sexual harassment. You will be asked what you would do in hypothetical scenarios. Participants in the focus group will be members of your career field, so you may know some of them. Your group will be single gender and all participants of similar rank.

Would you be willing to participate in a one-hour focus group on harassment response, particularly among the U.S. military services? If so, could you let me know which dates/times work best for you? Thank you in advance for considering this request.

Sincerely,

[Your name]

[Phone number/or sig block with phone number]

January 19, 2017