The principal goal of the project is to secure sustainable apprenticeship opportunities for severely handicapped youth in the German automotive industry by overcoming barriers that exist both for the potential applicants as well as for those responsible for selecting candidates and awarding the positions (BMBF 2005, Niehaus & Jaeger 2009). The first barriers loom at the outset: a company’s application procedures and associated aptitude tests may create an insurmountable hurdle for the severely handicapped. These barriers may be of a technical, social or communicative nature and may also involve reservations and concerns on the part of human resources personnel (Luecking 2003, 2008). In addition to the above, it is safe to assume that in many cases severely handicapped youth, sure that they will not be able to fulfill the expectations of the job or overcome the technical barriers, choose not even to apply. Point of departure was an analysis of existing opportunities and cooperative structures within the following industries: Daimler AG, Volkswagen, Rheinmetall, Kolbenschmidt, Hess Autoteile. The focus of the project was to develop and implement barrier-free apprenticeship opportunities and application procedures in order to recruit severely handicapped youth into industrial training programs.

Using the automobile industry as a model, existing situations with which severely handicapped youth have to contend as applicants for apprenticeships were described and efforts made to develop various strategies for adjusting these processes to accommodate the handicapped. These were then evaluated as to their relative effectiveness (OECD 2000, Phelps & Hanley-Maxwell 1997). The scope of the project was to include the following: • empowerment of young people with severe handicaps • efforts to inform human resources personnel and handicapped advocacy groups regarding barrier-free recruiting • adjustment of aptitude testing and other assessment instruments to take handicapped applicants into consideration.

Within the framework of participatory research, the initial results from the focus groups will be presented to managers, human resources officers, representatives of handicapped workers, works council members, and representatives of those responsible for youth and apprentice training in participating industries under the general heading of “Overcoming Barriers in the Recruiting of New Apprentices.”