TOOL TIME

So manifold,so colourful! The types of EU actors providing dual career support for athletes are numerous. Creating tools that have the potential to truly impact theirpractice across national systems and cultures equals a sporting challenge. Last week, two of the four STARTING 11 “tool teams” teamed up to start their collaboration.

Who are the key actors regarding the provision of dual career services? Sport: National Olympic Committees, high-performance centres, sport federations, or clubs. Education: Sport schools, universities, or other further education institutions. Labour market: Private companies, public employers, or job agencies for athletes. Who else? National lead agencies, to be found in some EU member states centrally executing dual career policies.

‍The European Dual Career Toolkit of STARTING 11 will provide tools in 3 areas of service: Manage, Train and Counsel. Correspondingly, specialised groups of European experts join forces to create a set of tools to help professionalize international practice.

The expert groups

The Manage group is steered by Guy Taylor and Colin Allen of TASS (focus: administration services) respectively Laurent Carnol of Sportlycée Luxembourg (communication services).

The Train group is headed by Dennis van Vlaanderen, Manager of the Topsport Academy Amsterdam (TAA) of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.

The Counsel group is led by Wolfgang Stockinger, former Head of Dual Career Development of the Austrian dual career organisation KADA and now Founder & CEO of the first Europe-wide dual career consultancy TW1N.

All 3 groups will gather topic-specific experts from the other project partners. From 24-25 May 2019, the first 2 groups, namely Train and Counsel initiated their collaboration in the form of 1-day-meetings. Building on the experiences gained in these groups, the Manage group will as well commence their work in October 2019.

The creation phase 1 of STARTING 11 which produces a set of dual career service tools lasts until end of September 2020. Following, the tools will undergo a testing period in collaboration with selected European dual career stakeholders.