A PARTNERSHIP between a training organisation and Cardiff and Vale college that works to boost the skills of hard to reach young people celebrated a recent graduation event at the Wales Millennium Centre.

The Media Academy Cardiff (MAC) event also saw some of the young people MAC works with perform music and a short play.

There was also a fashion show where a range of T-shirts promoting MAC that have been designed by young people training with the Academy was launched.

CAVC has been collaborating with MAC for two years on a post-16 BTEC programme, and this glitzy event at WMC celebrated the achievements of some of the young people who had passed their BTECs.

They were presented with their certificates by CAVC Curriculum Director Anne Parkin.

MAC holds a number of training contracts, and does work where all young people who are taken in to police stations from the age of 11 upwards are referred to the Academy.

This work offers them the opportunity to follow an MAC programme rather than end up with a criminal record. The Academy also carries out restorative meetings between young perpetrators of crime and their victims.

MAC Director Nick Corrigan said: “The work of MAC is enhanced by working in partnership with experts in their fields at Cardiff and Vale College

“Our work with CAVC helps us to engage the ‘unengagable’ and then support them when they do go to college.

“The transition rates of people actually going on to college have been incredible. The people we work with at CAVC really know how to engage these young people.”