An Integrated Knowledge Translation Approach to Developing A Story-Based Positive Youth Development Program in Sport

Despite the established physical, social, and emotional benefits of participating in youth sport, such outcomes are not guaranteed. Indeed, purposeful efforts must be made to ensure that sport offerings are age-appropriate, promote engagement and enjoyment, and involve quality social relationships (e.g., Côté et al., 2020). The current article describes an integrated knowledge translation (iKT) partnership that developed a free story-based positive youth development (PYD) program for young ice hockey players (aged 10 to 12 years) in North America. The aim of the ‘1616 Program’ is to use elite ice hockey players as role models—through storytelling—to serve as motivating agents to introduce and engage young athletes with important concepts pertaining to PYD. Content from the general and sport-specific PYD literature (e.g., Côté et al., 2010; Lerner, 2006) informed decisions during program development, with the process generally being guided by the Knowledge-To-Action (KTA) framework (Graham et al., 2006). Herein, we describe the iKT collaborative process that could serve as a template for other researchers interested in partnering with relevant invested partners to create youth development programs.