LEADERS of communities of Middle Eastern origin are being trained to pick up on signs of radicalisation among their youth.

The Melbourne-based Australian Multicultural Foundation has developed a training kit based on “radicalisation indicators” identified by Monash University’s Global Terrorism Research Centre.

Foundation executive director Hass Dellal said the kit had been produced with the assistance of Victoria Police and was supported by Middle Eastern communities.

“It helps dispel some misconceptions and misinformation about counterterrorism and radicalisation,” he said.

“But it also provides a better understanding of the radicalisation process and behaviours which could indicate that someone may be becoming radicalised.”

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Mr Dellal said that the training kit encompassed matters such as ideological and attitudinal changes, social changes such as someone losing their job or facing discrimination, and any tendency towards criminality.

“Families often don’t understand that people are becoming radicalised,” he said.

“Just like any other family that may have someone who’s got involved in some sort of criminal activity, they don’t understand that their son has gone off somewhere or has done something.

“And they’re not aware of behavioural changes, or (that) they’re going on to drugs or something.”

State Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship Minister Matthew Guy said he had been shocked by the obscene image of the son of an Australian jihadist holding up a severed head in Syria.

He was worried about other radicalised Australians going overseas for jihad.

“We don’t want them to feel that they need to go overseas and (turn to) radicalism to feel fulfilled - they are as Australian as all of us,” he said.

“It’s fair to say that the older members of the Islamic community are also looking for ways to make sure that their kids are happy in Australia, as we want them to be.”

Mr Guy said he would sit down with the Islamic Council of Victoria to develop ways to ensure Muslim youth felt part of the nation.

Dr Berhan Ahmed, who was Victoria’s Australian of the Year in 2009, said that in order to win the trust and respect of other communities, Muslims must condemn the murderous actions of overseas groups such as the Islamic State.

“This level of open fanaticism that denies others the right to make religious and moral choices, the right even to exist, is not historically characteristic of Islam,” he said.