A PIONEERING scheme is to be launched in Hyndburn to offer the borough's most problematic families support to try and keep youngsters on the straight and narrow.

Youth and community officers were this week meeting headteachers and police to draw up a list of 25 families to be targeted under the scheme, the first of its kind in the county.

Youth and Community officers will co-ordinate use of resources from various county council departments, including education welfare and social services, to ensure families get all the help they need.

Youngsters who continue to cause trouble would also have no grounds to argue they had been abandoned by the state if they appeared in court.

The scheme has been devised by Barry Emmett, youth and community services district team manager for Hyndburn

He said: "We want to provide help and support for families who are maybe struggling with their children.

"In the past, parents have had vast numbers of people, such as family and older friends, to call on for help and support but that network often isn't there any more. That is when sometimes youngsters can go a bit out of control and their parents struggle to control them because they are by themselves.

"We plan to co-ordinate our resources and expertise and help the families, offering them the knowledge and support which they would have got in the past from their network of friends and family. "We also want to make sure they get the help they need. In the past, it was all a bit ad hoc, with maybe education welfare getting involved, then another department then another. They will all work together now."

We want to help before it is too late. Of course, if the youngsters still end up in court despite the help we offer, they can't claim to have been abandoned but that isn't the primary aim of the project."

He added: "Basically, we are looking at combating a relatively new problem, that is parents struggling without support, which has come about through people moving away and broken homes."

In towns across Hyndburn, police clampdowns have been launched to sort out juvenile nuisance issues, with a high degree of success.

A spokesman for Lancashire Police welcomed the initiative and said: "We support the programme and hope it will help solve juvenile nuisance issues we have in the borough."