Type of Project: Funded project Model project
STAR - School meets working world: for the integration of severely disabled young people

Young people, regardless of disability, want to work where everyone works: on the general labor market. Students with special educational needs require sustainable, individually "tailored" support for their career entry - especially if the path is not to lead to the workshop for disabled people, but to completely regular company vocational training and employment. For years, the number of people attending workshops for people with disabilities has been rising sharply. In addition, the numbers of children attending special schools with a focus on mental development or physical and motor development are also rising. After completing their school education, these young people generally move to a workshop for people with disabilities (WfbM). It has therefore been undisputed for a long time that special vocational preparation for this group of people must begin before the end of their school career. Good results have been achieved under the heading of Berufswegekonferenz. The Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe achieved particular success with two Equal projects between 2002 and 2005. It has been shown that a higher number of school leavers with special needs in the areas of physical and motor development and hearing and communication can have opportunities outside the sheltered workshop. These results were presented to the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia at the beginning of 2008. In subsequent negotiations, a project has been developed to extend the successes achieved to date to the entire state. The state-wide joint project of the regional associations (in particular as integration offices) and the state government (in particular the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs), in coordination with the Ministry of Schools and Further Education (MSW) and the Regional Directorate of the Federal Employment Agency, is intended to sustainably strengthen the support structures in the area of the transition from school to job for students with special educational needs. The project work will primarily focus on the further development of career decision-making processes and the networking of local agents. Specifically, the project involves - improving vocational orientation in the transition from school to work with the aim of increasing integration into vocational training and work outside workshops for people with disabilities for special needs students, - to bring about increased and improved cooperation and networking of the agents and their resources (state-wide and regional) at all levels (structural and individual) with regard to bindingness, efficiency and sustainability, - to consider gender-specific requirements in the sense of gender mainstreaming as well as the needs of students with a migration background as cross-sectional goals of the project. The aim is to get more students with special needs in the areas of mental development, hearing and communication, physical and motor development, vision and speech into company employment and vocational training on the general labor market. For young people with severe disabilities and their parents, the path from school to a job often seems confusing. To improve vocational integration, STAR focuses on organizing the best possible individual transition from school to job at an early stage, 2 years before school graduation. At the same time, the cooperation and networking structures of the agents involved in the integration process are to be further developed and improved where necessary. The project is to run for 3.5 years. The costs of the first 20-month project phase amount to approximately 0.9 million euros for each part of the state. The state will contribute half of this from EU funds, while the regional associations will contribute the other half from funds from the equalization levy. The project will begin in the Siegen/Olpe and Bochum/Herne model regions in Westphalia, and in the second phase the experience will be transferred to the whole of Westphalia-Lippe (or NRW).