Staff at the only nationwide service offering support to Scotland’s most dangerous and troubled young people say they are devastated that it is closing at the end of October.

After the conviction in February of the teenager Aaron Campbell for the rape and murder of six-year-old Alesha MacPhail, staff at the Glasgow-based Interventions for Vulnerable Youth (Ivy) project spoke out about the need to support young people like him.

But now the highly specialised service, working with young people who present some of the most serious and complex risks in the country, faces closure because it cannot find a permanent base nor the funding to sustain it.

Although the Scottish government committed some funding for another year, this was not enough to support it in premises of its own and, because the money is allocated on a year-by-year basis, staff say this has made it difficult to recruit and retain people, or to persuade another organisation to host the service.

The project was set up five years ago to meet the needs of the minority of young people who present a severe risk of harm to others. The carefully calibrated team of health and social work specialists has supported more than 200 12- to 18-year-olds across 31 out of 32 Scottish local authorities to date, many of whom had already perpetrated very serious crimes, or made very explicit their plans to do so. The team believe that, through their interventions, they have prevented a number of murders and rapes.

Ivy was initially based at the Centre for Youth and Criminal Justice (CYCJ) at Strathclyde University but this was never intended to be permanent.

Fiona Dyer, the interim director of the CYCJ, said: “To meet the needs of these young people, professionals need very specialist skills, safe and supportive organisations to work within, as well as contingencies and resiliencies to buffer them from the practical and emotional demands of the work. Temporary funding simply fails to provide this as it creates uncertainty, detracts time and resources away from the ‘real job’ and undermines the ability to recruit and retain staff.”

The Guardian understands that Ivy staff had been in discussion with a potential new host but the offer fell through because of the project’s funding constraints.

Dyer said: “We have been extremely lucky to have had dedicated and committed staff who have, since the inception of the project, worked tirelessly to meet the needs of these vulnerable, marginalised and maligned young people in the hope that they can be supported to achieve better outcomes for them and those around them.”

A Scottish government spokesperson said: “The Interventions for Vulnerable Youth project was introduced by the Centre for Youth and Criminal Justice as a pilot to promote best practice in forensic mental health risk assessment and management for young people who present a serious risk of harm to others.

“We have supported this project since its introduction and will continue to support partners delivering Ivy to seek alternative sustainable arrangements for this service in the future.”

An appeal by Campbell over the length of his life sentence will be heard in Edinburgh on 7 August.