The scheme targets youngsters with difficult home lives

Those whose family homes are deemed to be a factor in their offending can be sent to specialist foster homes, under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003.

Professional foster carers are being selected and trained to give youngsters and their families "intensive care".

Pilot schemes in Staffordshire, London and Hampshire will begin next year.

A team of professionals, including psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and education specialists, will provide backing for both carers and youngsters.

Home Secretary David Blunkett said the schemes would give young offenders with "a difficult home life... the safety and stability they need to turn their lives around".

Looking after young offenders is a very different job from fostering other children Home Office spokeswoman Fiona Midgley

Home Office spokeswoman Fiona Midgley told BBC News Online they would target "the most disaffected, disengaged and excluded young people with disturbed and chaotic families".

And the months of training for carers were necessary because "looking after young offenders is a very different job from fostering other children".

The schemes were based on a programme called Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) pioneered by the Oregon Social Learning Center in the US, Ms Midgley added.

Foster parents are trained to award the youngsters in their care points for good behaviour and deduct them for bad.

The youngsters can then exchange the points for privileges in the home.

Discipline strategies

Every week they will have one-to-one therapy sessions to help them tackle their problems, deal with their emotions and develop their social skills.

These sessions continue for a year after they leave their foster carers and return to their original homes.

Their birth parents or guardians will also attend weekly therapy sessions where they are taught effective parenting and family-management techniques.

The idea is to encourage them to become more involved with the youngsters and teach them to use effective discipline strategies.

Constructive relationships

At the same time, the youngsters' ability to live successfully in a family setting is improved.

Their attendance and performance at school is monitored daily.

And they are encouraged to spend less time with other offenders and form more constructive relationships with people of their own age.

In the US, youngsters who had been in group care homes or custody were twice as likely to be re-arrested within a year as those who completed the MTFC programme.