Gainful employment continues to be of vital importance for participation opportunities, life plans, and biographies. Young people with a school-leaving certificate from a special-needs school or certified special educational needs are particularly affected by exclusion in their further (vocational) training. Many of those who cannot find their next training place after completing their schooling make use of offers by AusbildungsFit or qualification projects of NEBA-Netzwerk Berufliche Assistenz.

To date, there is hardly any knowledge in Austria regarding the situation of young people after completing a special-needs school or a school for special educational needs in these offers. This is why this research project addresses the following questions:

• Which topics in the context of professional training and career choice are young people concerned with when they have completed a special-needs school or a school for special educational needs and participate in qualification projects and institutions of AusbildungsFit by the Lower Austrian vocational assistance for young people?
• How can participatory approaches and social group work in the field of vocational assistance for young people promote the development of empowerment strategies?

In order to conduct research in adolescents’ lifeworlds together with the affected persons themselves, their subjective experiences and challenges in the institutional contexts of the Lower Austrian vocational assistance for young people are jointly identified using the Photovoice method (Wang & Burris, 1997), analyzed in reflective group processes, and evaluated.