The youths, some as young as 12, were seen openly drinking alcohol on the main strip of Tuggeranong before 6pm on a standard Friday night.

There's no sign of bottles in hands as the police cruise past, but Constables Justin Bateman and Rachel Thomson have little doubt there is alcohol around.

"We've already dealt with that group, that's the group that were supposedly drinking," Constable Bateman said.

"They've been hanging around here for the last couple of hours, running back and forth across the road.

"At this time of night, realistically, at six o'clock, there's no reason why a 12- or 13-year-old can't be walking around the shopping centre.

"When it gets a bit later, that's when parents get involved."

Under-age binge drinking has long been a sad reality on Canberra's streets, and has been a part of youth culture for decades.

Teenagers and children have persistently drunk alcohol despite countless public health campaigns, and the best efforts of police and schools to stop them.

But a new program piloted in the territory over the past 12 months has achieved surprising success, where other efforts have failed.

The Early Intervention Pilot Program, which is run across most Australian jurisdictions, works by referring teenagers and children who come to police attention for drinking or possessing alcohol to ACT Health for counselling, education, or treatment by trained clinicians.

There have been 154 referrals to the health system in 2011-12, and 306 referrals since the program started in December 2010.

The program has a 92 per cent compliance rate, and only four of the 306 people diverted to health have reoffended.

The program is innovative in its approach, and works from the core belief that there are deeper, more ingrained problems at school, home, or with a teenager's mental health that are driving the worst cases of alcohol abuse.

The program also aims to address a chronic lack of knowledge about the harmful effects of alcohol on the young brain, and the consequences of excessive risk taking when drunk.

It draws together the resources of ACT Policing's crime prevention portfolio and ACT Health clinical psychologists to address underage drinking.

When kids are first picked up on the street for underage drinking, their family is offered a simple choice; receive an official caution, which will stay on the child's record for the rest of their lives, or accept help through the intervention program.

The answer is fairly straightforward for most families, according to Clare McGettrick, an alcohol and drug diversion officer with ACT Policing.

The youth is then referred on to ACT Health and alcohol and drug clinician Clare Purcell. The young person is put through an exhaustive life assessment, as clinical staff seek to understand the deep-seated problems that lie behind the drinking.

That can range from mental health issues, including attempted suicide or self-harm, problems at school or at home, or a history of alcohol abuse in the immediate family.

"A lot of young people are drinking alcohol for a reason," Ms Purcell said, adding some children drank to cope with problems.

"If there's mental health issues, we can contact mental health services . . . often it might be that there's no mental health issues, there's family histories, or they're not going to school, so we'll refer them on to our psychologists or social workers, for more long-term interventions."

Roughly 10 per cent of the kids that come through the program are referred on to psychologists, social workers or others for long-term help.

The youth also takes part in education sessions, which focus on the crippling effect that drinking can have on the young brain.

The team also highlights the more immediate dangers of drinking, such as accidental injury, alcohol overdose, drowning, and the damage to the liver and kidney.

The highly successful program was due to wrap up at the end of the 2011-12 financial year.

But Crime Prevention acting officer in charge sergeant Sue Smith said spare funding would be used to continue the program until December.

At that point the fate of the pilot program will be decided.