A German scheme to deradicalise young jihadis through community support and persuasion is to set up a London office with backing from the UK government in a sign that the Home Office is looking for alternatives to punitive legal measures in the fight against radical Islam.
Despite growing calls for a crackdown on radicalised youths, with Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, chief constable of the Metropolitan police, adding to Boris Johnson's calls for a return of control orders, the Home Office is poised to fund the scheme which encourages parents to stay in touch with their children, even if they do go to Syria.
Hayat, the German deradicalisation programme, proposes that the minds of young Europeans intent on practising jihad in Syria or Iraq cannot be changed by politicians' threats or the force of law, but only by their next of kin.
"Families are the closest social community most radicalised young Muslims have," said Daniel Köhler, one of Hayat's family counsellors. "It is the perfect living counter-narrative to radical Islam." Even young jihadis, he argued, could not get around the fact that the prophet Muhammad told his followers to respect and listen to their parents.
In Germany, families who are concerned that their sons or daughters are drifting into radical Islam can contact Hayat – which means "life" in Arabic and Turkish – via a national helpline, set up in 2012.
"Most extremists groups try to force their members to sever ties with their families," said Köhler, who used to work for Exit, a programme for people trying to leave the neo-Nazi scene. "We teach them how to strengthen those ties again."
Many of their callers are families with a Christian background, concerned that their sons have converted to Islam. In such cases, Hayat passes on the contact details of a nearby liberal mosque and helps them monitor their development.
If their children have announced their intention to travel to Syria or join Isis, Hayat advises parents to practise "positive motivation" rather than confrontation.
In one recent case, a father had taken away his son's copy of the Qur'an after he joined an extremist group in Germany. Hayat helped the parents to organise a family picnic at which they apologised and handed it back.
When families are broken up, orare part of the problem, Hayat advises close relatives or friends. Half of its cases deal with intact, often middle-class, family networks.
In some cases, he said, parents counselled by Hayat had been unable to stop the young men from travelling to Syria or northern Iraq. But by keeping in regular touch via email and asking about their wellbeing – rather than allowing themselves to be provoked or drawn into a debate about ideology – they managed to keep the emotional safety net intact. "Once they get homesick, we know we can bring them back," said Köhler.
Calls to strip German or British people of their citizenship if they were found guilty of terrorist activity abroad, he added, were shortsighted and likely to play into the hands of terrorist groups.
On Wednesday, Hogan-Howe became the first serving police chief to back Boris Johnson's proposal for the presumption of innocence to be overturned for Britons who travel to war zones. The call has already been rejected by the coalition.
Köhler said: "A blanket criminalisation of everyone who travels to Syria would only confirm their radical ideology, which criticises the west for its blanket discrimination of all Muslims. It would mean that fewer families would get in touch with official channels to ask for help, and that those who could still return won't because they are automatically classified as terrorists."
Since Hayat was founded in 2011, it has worked on about 100 cases: in 30 of them it managed to stop or slow down the radicalisation process, preventing the young men from flying to Syria, bringing them back into work or education, and reconciling them with their parents.
In a further five cases, the programme helped individuals to make a clean break with radical Islamist groups and their ideology.
The cost involved is low. Hayat Germany consists of only five, visibly overworked, full-time members of staff, with a variety of backgrounds: Köhler is a former policeman, while the director, Claudia Dantschke, is a trained journalist. Another counsellor used to be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Their success has also found them admirers in Britain. Richard Barrett, a counter-terrorsim expert, said: "You've got to be bringing people back and allow them a soft ramp. I think the Home Office is interested in [Hayat] – just to understand about why people are going, how they get influenced in it. We don't seem to know about that. Sometimes it may be family tension, how do you deal with that?"
Pending Home Office approval, Hayat is expected to branch out into the UK within the next two weeks, in collaboration with the Probation Service and the Active Change Foundation, a youth organisation that would provide the counselling.
Government funding under discussion is thought to amount to £120,000. Drawing on Britain's network of community-based organisations, like Active Change, could prove even more effective than the German model, British officials hope.
"We have met a number of deradicalisation organisations over the years, and Hayat has been the one that has far exceeded our expectations," Active Change's director, Hanif Qadir, said. "They are extremely knowledgable, but they also understand that a complex problem like radical Islam doesn't necessarily require complex answers."