Context matters: Ten essential features of a Dual Career environment: During the symposium "Optimizing talented and elite athletes’ dual career pathways: From research to evidence-based practices"

One of the key challenges athletes face is combining elite sport with other pursuits such as education and/or work. A recent review of Stambulova & Wylleman (2019) illustrates that research on athletes’ dual career (DC) pathway has increased dramatically over the past decade, but also addresses that research is lacking considering the “whole” DC environment. In response to this research gap, the two-year Erasmus+ Sport project “Ecology of Dual Career” (ECO-DC) was launched in 2018 with the support of the European Commission. ECO-DC aimed at developing a taxonomy of European DC development environments (DCDEs), identify their criteria of effectiveness, study cases of (un)successful DCDEs, and develop a monitoring tool for DCDEs (ECO-DC, 2018). This presentation discusses the development and testing of the DC Development Environment Monitoring tool (DCDEM) aimed at assisting stakeholders when evaluating the current status of their DCDE in relation to their structure, DC arrangements, organizational culture, and the role of DC service providers. A total of 616 participants from Belgium (N = 118), Denmark (N = 216), Finland (N = 91), Slovenia (N = 5), Spain (N= 83), Sweden (N=46) and the UK (N= 57) completed the DCDEM, measuring ten essential features of a dual career environment: ‘Dedicated DC support team’, ‘Integration of efforts across the whole environment’, ‘A clear understanding of DC issues and support’, ‘Role models and mentorship’, ‘Access to expert support’, ‘A whole person approach’, ‘An empowerment approach’, ‘Flexible DC solutions’, ‘Care of DC athletes' mental health and wellbeing’, and ‘An open and proactive approach to the development of the environment’. Results obtained with the DCDEM and strategies to implement the DCDEM in daily DC practice will be shared.