The Erasmus+ funded DCMENTOR project was successfully completed with a closing meeting held in Istanbul. At the meeting, project partners COLIN (Norway), STTR (Turkey), NYSA (Sweden), EAS (Malta), IS (Poland), and FURIM (Norway) came together to carry out an overall evaluation of work in the field of dual career.
At the opening of the meeting, the project objectives and workflow were revisited. This was followed by a presentation of the current status of the platform developed within the project, along with suggestions focused on increasing reach, streamlining the user journey, strengthening content visibility, and improving feedback mechanisms.
General trends regarding mentor–mentee matching and mentoring sessions conducted during the project were assessed. The partners’ experiences showed that the mentoring model is a strong component as it enables personalized learning. Feedback from partners emphasized that, instead of one-off sessions, mentoring designs with more frequent and regular touchpoints would enhance effectiveness.
Country-based workshop presentations highlighted themes such as establishing the academic–sport balance, communication and expectation management, self-regulation and coping with stress, and institutional flexibility during the transition from high school to university. Participant feedback confirmed the importance of time management, cooperation among parents–teachers–coaches, and online support options during peak periods.
In the dissemination session, it was decided to consolidate the visibility efforts and good practices carried out to date into a single shared space. The partners reaffirmed their commitment to continued collaboration in order to sustain the project outputs and reach wider audiences.
DCMENTOR has developed tools, workshop content, and mentoring approaches to help young athletes pursue their education and sporting lives together, in a balanced and sustainable way. In the period ahead, the aim is to enrich the platform with practical materials for parents and teachers and to share good practices.
Acknowledgments: We would like to thank all partners, mentors, mentees, and stakeholder institutions for their contributions throughout the project.
