The second funding round from the Youth Sector Development Fund will be divided between 12 third sector organisations, which will each receive funding of £2.5m from December 2008 to March 2011.

Beverley Hughes, children's minister, who announced the second round of funding, said: "This is a great opportunity for ambitious organisations to benefit from a package of financial and business support and to enable them to help even more vulnerable young people."

Twenty teenagers had been killed in knife attacks this year by mid-July.