The model programme „1. Schwelle“ („first barrier”) is designed to offer young people in Eastern Germany a perspective during their phase of orientation. It addresses those who – right after finishing school – do not find an employer for an apprenticeship, a place at university or a job, those who neither enter the military nor a civil service directly. Accordingly, it meets all young people who have difficulties in overcoming the first barrier on their path from school to work; to give them support in that situation, to motivate them to further activities and to avoid their ‘slipping’ into a problematical passiveness.

nexus accompanies the model programme from a scientific point of view; the main goal is a broad analysis of the programme’s effects. On the one hand this analysis covers the young people involved, on the other it deals with their support situation and the responsible organisations for ‘competence agencies’ and ‘places of assignment’. The central question is whether the programme’s design is capable of fostering key competences and leading from disorientation to orientation.

The framework will be captured by means of quality and quantity, at the same time the evaluation team develops joint concepts; together with the local actors as well as with the organisers of the model programme. Thereby, existing profiles are to be enhanced, attractivity and efficiency are to be improved. A major role plays the quality of the networks; comparative examinations of structurally similar programmes will be carried out as well. Thus, the activating accompanying research can show, how comparable problem cases are differently defined and solved.