Attachments
The purpose of this Guidance Note is to provide technical recommendations to cluster members’ field staff on planning, designing and conducting the Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), including within the context of the Protection Risk Monitoring (PRM) exercise. The document provides basic tips to help field and assessment teams to better structure identification of the data sources, conducting focus group meetings, recording findings and assessments including in the PRMS.
Why do it?
▪ To better understand the people that we serve, in terms of issues fueling their exposure to protection risks, and through their recommendations to explore the ways how to overcome their challenges.
▪ Understand the unique experiences of different community groups to ensure that protection risks analysis and subsequent programming and humanitarian aid responds to the needs that are tailored to specific groups.
What are the focus group discussions (FGDs)?
FGDs are the platforms for interaction of a group of individuals with some common interest or characteristics, brought together by a moderator, who facilitates the discussion among the group members to collect information about a specific (focused) issue. The defining characteristics of each group varies from age to gender, diversity, social identity and specific needs.
Identifying the location for FGD
FGD location needs to be in a safe environment with minimum possibility of interruption, where participants would feel free to express their concerns and views without fear of judgment or prejudice. Some refreshments should be available. Most preferable would be an environment in which roundtable or circular sitting arrangements could be achieved. Identifying Protection Risks (Topics) for FGD Whether through a local expert knowledge, reports by cluster members or through results of other PRMS, assessments such as key informant interviews or observation method tools identify the key Protection Risks, which are going to be the topic of discussion of the FGD (full list of Risks and associated contextualization as well as question suggestions, are available in the PRMS Manual 2024). The selection of risks should be from the 10 out of 15 Protection Risks (as listed below). The remaining 5 risks have not been deemed to be appropriate for usage for FGD as a method to be discussed during the session. It is the recommendation of the Protection Cluster to limit the discussion to no more than three Risks mostly associated with the group composition. It is better to conduct several FGDs than to load the conversation with too many topics.