Berufsförderungwerk Köln gGmbH

When older people become long-lastingly incapable of working in their latest job, they face increased challenges. One of these challenges is the fact that older people already have many job-related competencies and a full new vocational education training of two or more years would not be suitable.

go2job offers a modular qualification program that lasts for a period of up to 12 months. The program starts with a 4 week profiling. The goal here is to identify job-related as well as private competencies and closes up with an integration objective. The occupational requirement profile of the identified integration objective will be matched with already present competencies.

Missing competencies will be trained in two phases:

- For the in-house training, BFW Köln benefits from the possibility to place the go2job participants temporarily in training courses of 21 training professions which are the most relevant professions in Germany’s dual system. In this phase the participants take part for at least 23 weeks.

- The following 25 weeks are aiming at developing the occupational skills for a specific job opportunity in a company. This phase is called training-on-the-job (TOJ). TOJ takes place in companies with job vacancies. These companies are interested in supporting people to gain missing competencies for a specific job opportunity rather than searching an employee that already has the job-relevant qualities. The general aim is to qualify directly for a specific future job. While working in the company the participants learn missing competencies accompanyingly. BFW Köln qualifies also in cooperation with other providers, for example if any specialized IT-certificates are needed.

Besides qualification BFW Köln supports the program participants intensively also with psychological and health support. Offers range from relaxation trainings to courses on learning methods and skills.

Job coaches play a key role in the program. Each job coach works for the participants and provides support. The job coaches organize the qualification opportunities and keep track of the integration objective.

Go2job is a highly individualized program that addresses the challenges of older unemployed people. Up to 70% of the participants find a job with support of go2job.