In this presentation we will share the Dual Career Assistance framework (DCA; Linnér, 2021) developed to merge the DC research, that has flourished in recent years (Stambulova & Wylleman, 2019), in a model that can guide applied practice. The DCA framework merges the holistic developmental (Wylleman, 2019) and the holistic ecological (Henriksen & Stambulova, 2017) approaches by suggesting a support that integrates a whole person, whole career, and whole environment perspective. It is based on findings from the PhD studies of Linnér (2021), European DC research (e.g., Brown et al., 2015) and the Erasmus+ projects ‘Gold in Education and Elite Sport’ (e.g., De Brandt, 2017) and ‘Ecology of DC’ (e.g., Henriksen et al., 2020), with a focus on the university level. Briefly explained, the DCA framework sets the aim of DC assistance to be helping student-athletes develop and maintain optimal DC balance to facilitate their striving for career excellence (Stambulova et al., 2015, 2020). Maintaining balance is not without challenges, and the framework points the attention to the DC scenarios and transitions capable of compromising balance (e.g., Linnér et al., 2021). Support providers are guided in helping student-athletes to choose efficient coping strategies to meet their challenges and maintain their DC balance, based on their current possession of DC competences (e.g., De Brandt, 2017) and available DC support (e.g., Knight et al., 2018), or lack thereof, within a DC development environment (Storm et al., 2021). Target areas for DC assistance based on the framework will be discussed.
2022.
16th European (FEPSAC) Congress of Sport Psychology, Padova, Italy, 11-16 July, 2022