Troubled teens sent abroad for second chance at success

A Yorkshire charity is helping to transform the lives of hundreds of children from troubled backgrounds. Chris Burn meets the man in charge of changing destinies.
10 Jan 2017...Chris MacCormac chief executive of the Morthyng Grroup who has just been awarded an MBE. Picture Scott Merrylees10 Jan 2017...Chris MacCormac chief executive of the Morthyng Grroup who has just been awarded an MBE. Picture Scott Merrylees
10 Jan 2017...Chris MacCormac chief executive of the Morthyng Grroup who has just been awarded an MBE. Picture Scott Merrylees

“This is the nearest you are going to get to a public school education for nowt.” Class sizes of no more than eight, individually-tailored lesson plans and even work experience abroad – it sounds like something close to Eton or Harrow but is actually a charity’s attempt to help Yorkshire youngsters in danger of being left behind by society.

For some students, it is a fresh start after struggling with school – for others caught up in criminal gangs and excluded from mainstream education, it is something approaching a last chance to turn their lives around.

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Chris MacCormac, the man in charge of Rotherham-based charity Morthyng, says: “If they are a child with no issues, plenty of potential, support and the ability to go anywhere in the world, we won’t have them here.”

10 Jan 2017...Chris MacCormac chief executive of the Morthyng Grroup who has just been awarded an MBE. Picture Scott Merrylees10 Jan 2017...Chris MacCormac chief executive of the Morthyng Grroup who has just been awarded an MBE. Picture Scott Merrylees
10 Jan 2017...Chris MacCormac chief executive of the Morthyng Grroup who has just been awarded an MBE. Picture Scott Merrylees

The organisation provides young people who don’t fit into the mainstream educational system with the opportunity to meet their goals in a different way, mainly through vocational training courses designed to teach them a trade.

Travelling to a foreign country for work experience is not something every teenager can boast on their fledging CV – but the special trips for hundreds of youngsters each year are arranged as part of the charity’s wider work. Some of the youngsters taken abroad go partly because they have such a bad reputation in their area they would struggle to get experience with a local company.

Teenagers interested in everything from construction and painting and decorating to hairdressing and retail have been given the opportunity to visit places such as Belgium, Spain and Portugal.

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The charity helps secure funding to cover the costs and even puts money towards passport applications.

10 Jan 2017...Chris MacCormac chief executive of the Morthyng Grroup who has just been awarded an MBE. Picture Scott Merrylees10 Jan 2017...Chris MacCormac chief executive of the Morthyng Grroup who has just been awarded an MBE. Picture Scott Merrylees
10 Jan 2017...Chris MacCormac chief executive of the Morthyng Grroup who has just been awarded an MBE. Picture Scott Merrylees

With some youngsters reluctant to even travel to different parts of South Yorkshire beyond the area they call home, Chris says the idea of going abroad can be daunting for some at first – but typically proves worthwhile.

“Some of them really struggle when they are going abroad, with things like the fear of going somewhere that doesn’t speak their own language,” he says.

“But when they pick up a hammer and realise it works the same and that we all use the same measurements and processes, it helps their confidence.”

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Chris says that over the past 20 years, the charity has monitored the progress of the youngsters who have had the chance to take part in the foreign exchanges and found they tend to perform better in exams and progress further in the world of work compared to counterparts who stayed at home.

Part of the aim of the European placements is to show the teenagers it is possible to develop skills and overcome barriers and hurdles they previously thought they could not overcome.

That ethos is a key part of the wider work done by Morthyng. The charity has been working across Yorkshire for almost 30 years and chief executive Chris was recently awarded an MBE for his services to education and business.

The intake varies from children from special schools, to those who have been permanently excluded for bad behaviour or older teenagers who have left school with few or no qualifications to their name.

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The organisation has bases in Rotherham, Doncaster, Liverpool and Northamptonshire and has previously worked in areas of Yorkshire including Leeds, Wakefield, Barnsley and Sheffield.

Much of their work is based around teaching students practical skills they can use in the world of work, while also improving their Maths and English skills to improve their chances of getting a job.

It takes students from the age of 12 up to 19.

Its recent success stories include promising snooker player Ashley Carty, who won the English Under-21 championship in 2014. Many staff members are also former learners.

Chris says the transfer of schools from being run by councils to becoming academies that look after their own affairs has coincided with an increase in the number of students being permanently excluded ‘for questionable reasons’.

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“Here in Rotherham we have a pupil referral unit that is designed for 60 – last year, it had 120 kids. Local authorities now have all the responsibilities and none of the resources to make the future of that child any better.”

Chris says the nature of the organisation presents challenges for staff while making demands of the youngsters to improve their standards of behaviour.

“If you can get past the effing and get to the individual child, if you can rise above it, you have a chance. If you send them out of class all the time, you will never educate them.

“Here we have lines that if you step over something will happen. You won’t get your bursary for that day or you won’t have access to the free tea and coffee machines.”

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Chris says while the charity does its best to give everyone a chance, sometimes it will not work out and children have to leave for the good of the education of others.

“Out of ten or 100 people you give a second chance to, 20 per cent will let you down. You have to rejoice in the 80 per cent that don’t. In every culture, there is good, bad and indifferent. You have got to accept that is life. If you can affect a positive change in one child every day of the year, that is 365 kids.

“Not going to prison for some of our kids is a success. For some of them it is getting their first-ever job.”

Morthyng was set up by two Christian organisations in Rotherham in 1988 and retains a religious ethos. Chris, a Catholic 57-year-old dad-of-two, says his personal background has a direct effect on how he conducts his job. The former British Steel worker was made redundant in 1986 and retrained, going on to become centre manager of a Youth Training Scheme.

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He joined Morthyng in 1994 as general manager and went on to serve as president of the Barnsley and Rotherham Chamber of Commerce.

“I come from a working class family and a lot of the stuff these kids go through I can associate with.

“I am from a very secure Catholic family. My parents said ‘Don’t bring trouble back to this door and just do your best’.

“Both my parents are dead now but in reality their hard work and my being nosy and having to be in charge of things has helped me get to where I am.

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“There is a family story that our parish priest asked my mother if I would become a priest and she said I wouldn’t unless I could be the Pope!

“I wouldn’t say I’m overly religious but I believe in my faith and also believe people have a right to be who they are.

“It is about raising expectations. Just because that is all you have ever had, doesn’t mean that is all you will come to.”