Mothers and aunts are to be asked to help fight extremism in Muslim communities, Local Government Secretary Hazel Blears has revealed.
Ministers are to draw up new plans to bring "ordinary people" on board, particularly women.
It follows admissions that the Government has placed too much emphasis on the role of people identified as "community leaders" in the past.
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The new policy was welcomed last night by Birmingham MP Khalid Mahmood - as he warned that traditional approaches to preventing extremism were flawed.
Mr Mahmood (Lab Perry Barr) said: "We have relied on organisations which have failed the community, and on community leaders who had definitely failed the community."
Ms Blears said the new policy was modelled on a campaign to reduce drug use in ethnic minority communities, which recruited dinner ladies to spread the message.
Peer Lord Patel of Bradford, who drew up the anti-drugs campaign, is leading a Government review into preventing extremism. He is to visit towns and cities with large Muslim populations to discuss the plans, before presenting his recommendations to Ms Blears.
The change in emphasis comes as Ministers prepare for a major increase in spending on schemes to prevent the spread of extremist ideas.
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The Government is to spend £45 million over the next three years, up from £6 million last year.
Ms Blears said Kamlesh Patel, an independent peer who sits in the Lords as Lord Patel of Bradford, had been asked to lead the review following a study seven years ago into reducing drug use among ethnic minorities.
She said: "What Kamlesh did was to develop a particular way of approaching the community, to work with ordinary people in the community to get the messages across.
"That meant working with people like dinner ladies, people in ordinary jobs.
"Therefore, what I have asked Kamlesh to do is to come in and look at the preventing extremism agenda, and to see whether there a way of using a similar technique.
"That is where I think we are really going to make progress, when people themselves say - yes, we have got a problem, how do we work together to solve it.
"If you can do that with mums and aunties and brothers and sisters, to get the message across, that in many ways is more powerful than a top-down Government message."
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The Government's existing policies involved too few people, she said. "At the moment, the projects that we've got are brilliant, but they are working with 20 people here and 20 people there.
"I want to see if there is something we can get right across the community, where people are doing this largely for themselves."
Funding for efforts to fight extremism would be stepped up dramatically, she said.
"Last year we had £6 million to fund a whole series of projects in many communities to tackle violent extremism.
"Over the next three years we are going to have £45 million, and I want to make sure that money is really well spent, so you should see a significant increase in work with Muslim communities right across the country."
Mr Mahmood said the Government should consider giving local councillors a more prominent role.
He said: "In principle it is absolutely right that we involve dinner ladies, teachers, mums and people from across the community.
"But I think we still need someone to coordinate this work, and this is where we could make much better use of the elected representatives."