The department of Social Studies at the BiB (Berufskolleg im Bildungspark), a vocational school in Essen, offers training courses for young people to become stately qualified educators who are going to work in different social institutions. So far this department has not been involved in EU-projects. Therefore there has little experience in intercultural exchanges in Europe. This is the first application which is intended to form the basis of further activities in European projects. The main target of the project "Intercultural exchange through work placements in social institutions in Europe concerned with education in early childhood" is an intercultural opening of the vocational school of Social Studies at the BiB in Essen to intercultural exchange. Our intention is to give students the opportunity to broaden their professional competences on the one hand and those of foreign languages and their intercultural competences on the other hand. They should be prepared for learning and living in Europe, and they should get impulses for the social work in their communities. Apart from national instruments of quality and project management, the cooperation with the partner organization SOSU Sjaelland should help to develop one's own instruments of monitoring and quality management for linking schools with different social institutions. In the scholastic year 2012/13, the first steps were initiated by the department of Social Studies at the BiB to take part in EU projects. In October 2012 the BiB joined a meeting - coodinated by the Bezirksregierung Düsseldorf - together with representatives of the SOSU Sjaelland in Nasestved in Denmark. With this school a European partner was found who is already very experienced in coordinating exchanges and who provides a highly developed infrastructure, so that the students will be chaperoned in a professional way. Thus this contact has been intensified in the scholastic year 2013/14. The profiles of the prospective participants are diverse (professional formation with examination , AS Level with integrated work placements, A-Level). The choice of the applicants will be made on the basis of qualifications, foreign language skills, personality, motivation and intercultural competences. The department of Social Studies provides the following services in the project: it coodinates the contact to the head of school and the European cooperating partners. In addition it ensures a troublefree procedure in financing and organizing the project. Furthermore it chooses the participants and prepares them for the exchange by providing language courses and intercultural tutoring. The department is responsible for the complete documentation of the project. Through this project, even the teachers will acquire important competences how to prepare, to carry through and to evaluate the work placements in other European social institutions. With a work placement abroad, the students are given the opportunity to increase their professional competences on the one hand and those of foreign languages and their intercultural competences on the other hand in order to integrate them into their job routine in their home country.