Strong career orientation with strong parents in Baden-Württemberg
Young people ask themselves many questions when it comes to choosing a career: “What do I want to be when I grow up? What are my career aspirations and preconceptions? How do I achieve them?”
Do you discuss questions like this with your child?
Finding a suitable career is an exciting and thrilling process – and not just for your child. How do you approach it?
On this page, you will find suggestions and support to help your child with their career orientation (CO).
What support will my child receive as they move into the world of work?
Your child will not have to make the transition alone. There are many partners who are there to provide support and guidance: in addition to the school, these include the Employment Agency, trade associations, companies and many more.
How do you find out what is available? You will find information about this here.
The school will support your child throughout the entire orientation process. There are two central approaches used for this: BOaktiv (COactive) and the berufswahlapp (career choice app). You can also find out about these services here.
How do I find out what is available?
Here you will find an overview of the steps and tasks involved in career orientation.
What are my child’s strengths and interests?
The BOaktiv process shows your child what they are good at and makes them reflect on this carefully. BOaktiv supports your child and their teachers with career orientation from Year 5 onwards.
Where can my child collect their documents?
The digital berufswahlapp accompanies your child and their teachers throughout their time at school and provides a structure for career orientation.
How do I support my child?
Your support is important!
How well do you know your child’s career interests and aspirations? Do you know your child’s strengths and abilities? How well do you know your way around the world of careers?
Here you will find general information about ways to support your child’s career orientation. Take the test yourself now. This will give you specific suggestions about what you can do.
You will also be able to assess your child’s strengths and abilities.
How do I support my child?
Here you can find out about the wide range of services available to parents and guardians.
Parents and young people talk about their experiences.
Do other parents feel the same as me? How do other parents support their child? And what do the young people think about that?
The video provides answers to these questions: parents and children talk about their experiences. This provides motivation to take action yourself. Because strong career orientation for strong children needs STRONG PARENTS!
Videos and information about professions
BERUFENET: The most comprehensive encyclopaedia for the world of professions with information updated daily about over 3,500 professions offers:
effective decision-making support for career choices, further vocational training or reorientation;
information about professional and personal entry requirements for specific professions;
information about training and job content, earning opportunities, career prospects and alternatives;
Entdeckerwelt Berufsfelder (Discover career areas): a straightforward entry point to the world of careers;
Entdeckerwelt Studienfelder (Discover areas of study): guidance on finding a suitable degree programme;
Entdeckerwelt Tätigkeitsfelder (Discover areas of work): highlights the breadth of activities available as careers.
BERUFE.TV: The extensive video portal about professions offers many videos about everyday working life in professions for which training and study are required:
videos about individual professions;
overviews of specific career areas;
themed videos about opportunities for young people with disabilities, for example, or training opportunities for young immigrants.
JA zur Ausbildung: Here you will find videos made by employees and managers from the business world who started their professional career with an apprenticeship.
Baden-Württemberg has been implementing a reform programme for the transition from school to work for a number of years. Regional Transition Management is a central component of this. Among other things, this coordinates all regional activities relating to career orientation. Schools and Regional Transition Management want to involve you as parents and guardians in the career orientation of your children. You should not be left to deal with this issue on your own. How does this work? Baden-Württemberg has implemented the research project “BO4P – Strengthening parental involvement in career orientation” as part of the Education Chains initiative.
From 2023 to 2025, 32 comprehensive and vocational schools developed and trialled services in conjunction with Regional Transition Management in nine urban and rural districts. Prof. Thorsten Bührmann and his team from the Medical School Hamburg provided academic support for these services. The services have been reviewed and are now gradually being made available to all schools.
One idea that came out of the project was to develop a website for parents and guardians. The website was created at the initiative of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport in co-operation with the Medical School Hamburg and MTO Psychologische Forschung und Beratung GmbH. It provides you with up-to-date, academically verified information and tried-and-tested recommendations for your child’s career orientation.
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