Carley B. Jewell, Jacqueline van Ierssel, Philip Sullivan, Sean Locke, Amanda M. Black

Background: Nearly 478,000 youth play hockey in Canada annually and approximately one in five will experience sport-related concussion (SRC). Although psychosocial SRC consequences including social isolation, fear, and confidence are well-documented, current return to sport (RTS) strategies provide minimal direction for addressing these challenges. Social support can facilitate RTS, yet little guidance is available for supporters (e.g., coaches) regarding how to enact social support behaviours.Purpose: To co-design a social support intervention for youth athletes’ SRC RTS.Proposed Methods: We will run six storytelling focus groups (two per participant group: athletes, coaches, sideline care providers; 48-60 participants). Storytelling focus groups combine scenario building and group discussions to elicit narratives informed by real-life experiences. Storytelling groups foster shared decision-making between researchers and participants, ensuring contextual relevance and the likelihood of successful implementation. Storytelling groups are suited to RTS, as SRC rehabilitation is unpredictable and involves coordination between supporters across recovery. Timelining techniques will describe how social support needs and roles shift throughout RTS, informing intervention design. Data will be analyzed via thematic narrative analysis resulting in a practice-oriented intervention grounded in lived experience.Conclusion: This project addresses a critical gap between social support recommendations and their enactment in SRC rehabilitation. It will generate an evidence-based, co-designed intervention specifying how, when, and by whom social support behaviours can be delivered. Involving social agents promotes contextual applicability and extends SRC rehabilitation models by offering practice-ready guidance. Findings will inform feasibility testing and provide a framework for adaptation across sport and injury contexts.