Experts may soon treat ‘radicalisation’ as a mental health issue, rather than trying to combat it with jail time and restrictive laws.

A group of international experts are working to create Australia's first Centre for Intervention and Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) - a place for research and intervention for young people at risk of falling victim to radical and violent ideas.

Dr Clarke Jones from the Australian National University says that as the nature of terrorism changes, so must the response.

“Terrorism is changing and over the last 12 months ... where we are today is different from where we were before, we are seeing the nature of terrorism changing,” he said.

Dr Jones will be a central figure in the formation of the CVE, and says that there are a number of new techniques and specialists getting involved.

“The individual is treated separately because there's not one pathway to radicalisation,” he said.

“That would involve a social worker, a psychologist, maybe a psychiatrist in some cases - but [it would involve] trying to understand the situation and assess the level of radicalisation and work towards the other way.”

The plans so far will see individuals participate in one of three separate programs depending on the level of radicalisation, based on assessments by psychologists and other experts.

“We can't just lock them away in maximum security prison, that's going to be incredibly ineffective and counter-productive,” Dr Jones said.

Some of the money for the CVE has come from the huge $630 million package put forward by the Federal Government last year to help fight home grown terrorism.

In a statement, Attorney-General George Brandis said: “The CVE early intervention program identifies radicalised and at-risk people and delivers a range of tailored services such as mentoring, counselling, education and employment services that will help them turn away from ideologies of violence and hate.”

Islamic community groups such as the Forum on Australian-Islamic Relations have previously argued that they do not have the resources and expertise to help the deeply troubled individuals drawn to extremist ideologies.

“The Government's attempts have been very superficial to a point that they have only had a cosmetic approach to dealing with radicalisation,” community leader Kuranda Seyit said in a recent interview with the ABC.

“[With more support services] we would have prevented a lot of instances that have happened over the past few years - a case to point, I think we could have got to young people like Numan Haider, who was killed during an attack in Melbourne,” he said.

“I think the Muslim community is trying its best, but it is under-resourced and it doesn't have the capacity to know how to deal with this issue.

“It is very complex ... and very difficult because you need people with expertise.”

More announcements are expected in the coming weeks, which some say will see greater links forged between services and the Islamic community in particular.