Children with serious emotional and behavioural problems could soom be cared for by a new breed of specialist fosters carers in one part of England.

A small group of highly-skilled carers could be recruited in Northumberland and paid an annual salary of between £15,000 and £18,000 to provide round-the-clock care and a family homes for the challenging youngsters.

If the pilot scheme gets the go-ahead it will be the first time that social services in the region have paid foster carers a wage.

One or two couples will be chosen at first, but this number could rise to 10 if the project gets the all clear.

The idea has already been used in other parts of the country, with Newcastle City Council paying a £19,000 salary to the special carers for the last two years.

By placing the youngsters with carers it would cut Northumberland County Council's costs dramatically.

It currently costs them up to £1m a year to provide out-of-county residential care for a small roup of such children.

Denis Robinson, divisional director of children's services for the county council, said: "Placing the type of young people we are talking about in specialist residential care can cost up to £3,000 a week.

"We are now looking at the possibility of employing specialist foster carers and paying them a salary in recognition of the skills needed to look after these challenging young people.

"We would be asking them to do a full-time job of work and look after these children over a period of months so we would be talking about a salary of something like £15,000 to £18,000.

"The type of people we are looking for might have a background in residential or social care."

Parts of this article appear courtesy of the Newcastle Journal