Background Despite the fact that an educational programme for parents of youth tennis players has been launched recently, there is a need to empower parents of athletes in sustaining the combination of education and sport careers (i.e., dual career) of their talented and elite athletes across sports. The aim of this study was to explore the parents’ view of their role as dual career supporters and their need for educational support in this area. Methods In total, 115 parents (F = 49, M = 66) of athletes (14–23 yrs) engaged in full time academic education (high school/university) and competitive (e.g., National, International) sports (individual = 12, team = 9) in five European Member States (e.g., France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia) took part in national workshops. The workshops involved discussing five themes and agreeing statements relevant to assist parents supporting their children as dual career athletes: 1) the athletes’ needs; 2) the sports environment; 3) the academic environment; 4) dual career-related policies and services; 5) The educational methods for parenting dual career athletes. Results A final list of 80 agreed statements were identified: 25 statements mainly related to the sports entourage; 23 to information on dual career-related policies and services; 22 to the athletes’ needs; 17 to the academic entourage, and 8 to the relevant educational resources to parenting dual career athletes, respectively. Conclusions This cross-national qualitative research synthesized the parents’ perspectives about their needs and the most relevant content of an educational programme for parenting dual career athletes. The findings of this research will help influence the formulation of effective education strategies on parenting dual career athletes to ensure an optimal supportive environment for the successful combination of high-level sport and education careers.

Background This study aimed to use a concept mapping methodology to develop a European framework of the needs of parents/guardians (P/G) for supporting athletes combining sport and education (dual career, DC). Methods By means of a concept mapping methodology, 337 French, Irish, Italian, Portuguese, and Slovenian parents sorted and rated 80 potential statements associated to parenting DC athletes. Results Five distinct clusters emerged: 1. P/G’ roles, needs and awareness to support athletes, including 22 statements (mean:3.7; range: 3.2–4.2 pt); 2. Requirements for effective planning of DC pathway, including 19 statements (mean:3.7; range: 3.2–4.5 pt); 3. Educational opportunity, including 13 statements (mean:3.5; range: 3.1–4.0 pt); 4. Policy and provision for DC, including 19 statements (mean:3.7; range: 3.1–4.2 pt); and 5. Athletes’ lifestyle & self-management, including 7 statements (mean:4.0; range: 3.5–4.5 pt). Estimates of effect size (Partial eta-squared) were calculated for ANOVAs to assess the degree of variability on the statement importance ranking as the dependent variable accounted for by the demographic data. The concept mapping showed good validity (stress value: 0.11) and high reliability (rSHT: 0.99, rSHM: 0.98; rRR:0.98). One-third of the statements indicated differences (p<0.05) in relation to the P/Gs’ gender and the athletes’ education level, competition level and sport typology. Conclusion In synthesizing the opinions, experience and needs of P/Gs of DC athletes the present framework provided sound theoretical underpinnings to inform the development of an online educational programme for empowering parenting DC athletes (https://edu.empatiasport.eu/eng/), as well as be a foundation for future Pan-European DC research on how these statements interact with each other, in different European contexts.

There is a need for educational support structures to empower parents in sustaining talented athletes pursuing academic and sports careers (e. g., dual career). The present work describes the participatory design used to develop a series of educational resources and the subsequent iterations used to evaluate the content of the EMPATIA online education programme for parents of dual-career athletes. Following an ethnographic approach, the project team (18 dual-career experts) engaged in four iterations (i.e., rounds) planned to develop (rounds 1 and 2) educational material from preliminary evidence (systematic literature review) and eminence (focus groups and concept mapping) knowledge and to evaluate the educational programme (round 3 and 4) engaging end users (n = 76) and other stakeholders (9 dual-career experts). The EMPATIA programme was developed and organized in four modules labeled after macro-aspects, parents could ask about dual career: “Why” (the definition and challenges of dual career for athletes and their parents), “What” (insights, guidelines, and suggestions on the parental role in support of student-athletes), “How” (practical advice on planning dual career at sports and academic levels, and post-sports careers), and “Where” (finding legal information or counseling on dual career). Despite overall positive evaluations of the programme, parents of dual-career athletes attributed higher scores with respect to those of dual-career experts. The participatory approach presented in this work enables developers to apply a systematic and multidisciplinary approach toward the creation of educational programmes for parents. The cooperation among dual-career researchers, experts from high-performance centers, Olympic bodies, sports clubs, and parents of elite student-athletes of different sports and nationalities created an educational programme suitable for end users to support parenting athletes in combining their sports and academic careers.