JOBLESS women across Teesside are being encouraged to swap the dole queue for the fire service.

A New Deal course is giving women the chance to complete a six-week paid training course in the rudimentary skills needed to become firefighters.

Single mothers and housewives are among those who have tasted the highs and lows of firefighter training.

They joined Cleveland Fire Brigade and have been put through their paces to test their physical and mental skills.

At the force's training camp at Church Lane, Middlesbrough, women have been roughing it in the finest assault course tradition.

Hose running, climbing up ladders and crawling through cages were some of the tasks that have been sorting the girls from the women.

Middlesbrough single mother Sarah Green, 19, has a ten-month-old child at home but dreams of joining the fire service after joining the course.

She said: "Training was brilliant. It really gives you an incite into what it takes to become a firefighter.

"You have to be so fit and so sharp mentally - especially when you're climbing up those ladders and you're told to let go and hold on using only your legs."

The course, the first of its kind in the country, is designed to equip women with the necessary skills and experience to apply for a permanent job with the service.