Help Bear Thrive With ABA Therapy

Hi, my name is Frankie and I have a 5 year old son named Bear. Bear was diagnosed with level 3 autism just before his second birthday, he is currently non verbal and has high support needs.

Without giving a whole sob story, the past few years have been quite difficult for us, when I was diagnosed with cancer, my immune system was very low and we couldn't socialize much which obviously is so important for someone on the spectrum to do and as Bear gets older his support needs get a little higher. We have reached out with the services in our community a few times as he engages in some self injurous behaviors, and has issues with self regulation. With his needs it makes it difficult for us to work as often as we'd like to be.

Bear attended senior kindergarten for an hour a day, which is less than he was going in junior kindergarten. We're currently working with "connections for students" to try to increase his time, he has 1:1 support while he's there but still won't last that long. With grade 1 coming up in September, it's already so different and so scary for children but Bear isnt at that level of readiness yet.

We have been on the OAP waitlist for 4 years and have just over a year to wait if they are still on track with applications at that time, but he would be going into grade 2 then. We've looked into alot of ABA and IBI therapy and it's very expensive but we feel so strongly that it's what Bear needs at this time, and we really can't wait another year since he's already regressed from jk to SK.

We've been quoted for in home ABA $180 an hour and their minimum is 6 hours a week, although he'd benefit more with more hours that's already an insane amount of money for us, and we simply can't afford it at this time. The contract with this company is for 12 weeks minimum so that puts us over $12,000...

I really hate being vulnerable but for our son, it's something we need to do. If you've met Bear, you know he is more than deserving of an education and the help, he's such a smart, sweet, loving kid.

We like to get him into either of these therapies sooner rather than later, and we can't commit to any of them without knowing we have the funds available.

I know these fundraisers arent usually for these types of things but I'm asking please if youre able to help, we'd be forever grateful.