Community Support for Injury Recovery

Injury can change much more than someone’s physical health. It can affect confidence, identity, work, family life, recreation, and connection with others. Yet while people often receive clear guidance for physical rehabilitation, there are few accessible community resources to help with the emotional and social side of recovery.

Recover Together will help fill that gap. Led by the Banff Sport Medicine Foundation (BSMF) in collaboration with Bow Valley residents with lived experience and local health and wellness experts, it will bring people recovering from injury together for six free, in-person workshops focused on connection, belonging, practical support, and moving forward through recovery.

We have already seen the need for this kind of support. BSMF held a community preview and feedback workshop attended by 18 local residents. Participants spoke about isolation, discouragement, uncertainty, and the unexpected emotional impact of injury. Just as importantly, they connected with one another. After the one-hour session ended, people stayed to talk with strangers they had just met, bonding over shared experiences of injury and recovery.

Recover Together will build on that experience through six 90-minute workshops. Each session will combine practical learning, guided activities and conversation, input from a local expert, and a story or perspective from a community member with lived experience of injury recovery. Topics will include managing setbacks and maintaining momentum, supporting mental wellbeing, building a recovery team, nutrition, goal setting, and rebuilding confidence.

What makes Recover Together different is the space it fills between physical rehabilitation and mental-health care. Rather than counselling or medical treatment, it offers a community-based opportunity to learn, talk openly about the realities of injury recovery, and hear from others who have faced similar challenges.

Participants will leave with useful strategies and resources, but also something that can be harder to find during a long recovery: a sense of belonging and shared support from people who understand the challenges of injury recovery.

Recover Together will primarily benefit 24 Bow Valley residents recovering from injury, particularly those experiencing the emotional and social challenges that can accompany recovery. The program is intentionally relevant across injury types, ages, activity levels, and stages of recovery. By offering all six workshops free of charge in a community setting, BSMF will reduce financial barriers to participation.

Participants will gain practical tools to manage setbacks, maintain momentum, build an effective recovery team, support recovery through nutrition, set adaptable goals, and rebuild confidence for returning to work, recreation, sport, and everyday life. They will also gain shared support from others who understand the challenges and uncertainty of injury recovery.

At least six community members with lived experience of injury will participate as lived-experience mentors, sharing what helped them, what they found difficult, and what they wish they had known earlier in their recovery. Their experiences will help shape the program as well as support current participants.

The impact will extend beyond those attending the workshops. Participants may share what they learn with family members, friends, teammates, coworkers, coaches, and others facing injury. Recover Together can also help facilitate broader community conversations about the emotional and social effects of injury, an aspect of recovery that is common but often discussed much less openly than physical rehabilitation.