[30 years rehabilitation preparatory courses and their role in the future exemplified by the Hamburg vocational promotion center].
Over the last 30 years, some 12,000 disabled people have participated in the pre-rehabilitation courses ("Rehabilitationsvorbereitungslehrgänge", RVL) offered by the Hamburg Vocational Training Centre (on average, some 75% of all rehabilitees have attended RVLs prior to their specific vocational retraining); 90% of them successfully, hence able to start their retraining as scheduled. In some 1000 rehabilitees, the original occupational objective was reconsidered at the end of the course, attributable in particular to the fact that less than 40% of participants had gone through vocational assessment/work trial measures beforehand. Over these years, some 1400 rehabilitees obtained their lower secondary school leaving certificate (Hauptschulabschluss). Data collected over the last six years revealed that legasthenic disorders have been present in an average 7% of all RVL participants (a total of 50 persons a year), problems which were dealt with through special remedial measures to the extent that the prerequistites for successful retraining were achieved. Over the decades of their existence, the effectiveness of RVLs in preparing for successful vocational rehabilitation has been unchallenged. It is in particular the action competencies acquired in this preparatory phase already, such as team functioning, communication and project work skills as well as coping with the disablement present, that are found to complement and enhance the technical, occupation-specific competencies acquired during the retraining, so that subsequent job application and placement in gainful employment will have far greater prospects of lasting success than had the RVL training been omitted.