Help Ella get a life changing assistance dog

Hi, my name is Steve and I'm fundraising for an assistance dog for my daughter Ella. Ella is 15 years old and has Autism, ADHD, Tourette’s Syndrome and anxiety. Her disabilities affect her in many ways every day and we believe an assistance dog would truly change Ella's life.

Ella's story:

Ella has struggled for many years, in many ways every day and is currently struggling more than she ever has.

Ella was first diagnosed with anxiety at the age of 10. She struggled to go into school and had anxiety about many things in life. Her mental health was deteriorating, affecting her education and socialisation. We had many professionals involved and found out Ella is autistic and has ADHD.

As the years have gone by Ella has struggled more and more especially with school, friendships and coping with life in general. Because of Ella's autism and ADHD she has regular meltdowns, shutdowns and panic attacks due to sensory issues, anxiety, emotional regulation difficulties and more.

Because Ella's autistic she experiences the world very differently to how neuro typical people do. She finds the world around her very overwhelming and noises, lights, strong smells and busy places can cause her a sensory overload.

Unfortunately back in August 2021, Ella developed tics which started mild but quickly became severe and she has since been diognosed with Tourette’s syndrome. Tourette’s has had a massive impact on Ella's life, causing her to loose independence, accessing public places and having an education. Ticcing as severe as she does is exhausting for her physically and her leg dropping tics have caused her mobility problems leaving her in a wheelchair most of the time. She also has tics which are extremely dangerous such as running into roads making her unsafe outside.

Since developing tics Ella's mental health which was already suffering has got a lot worse. Ella now has another anxiety about going into public as her tics are often loud and explicit which is embarrassing for her. She also is very isolated from her peers at school, having to be in a classroom on her own with her 1:1 TA. She has shutdown from the world, not wanting to see people and somedays not wanting to get up. She is currently housebound.

Ella has tried various different types of therapy, most of which haven't had a massive impact on her life.

Ella was moved to an alternative provision school to support her needs in 2020. While it was better than mainstream school, Ella still struggled to go into school. Since Ella's Tourette’s, she hasn't been able to do much school work and is now on a time table of 2 hour and 30 minutes a day and we don't know what is going to happen to Ella's education in the future.

After a lot of research into assistance dogs and my daughters love for animals we feel like this could possibly change or massively improve her quality of life. Having an assistance dog would help Ella to leave the house and cope in day to day situations. The assistance dog would learn many tasks to help her autism, ADHD. anxiety and Tourette’s and be able to go with her everywhere in public .

Getting an assistance dog wouldn't just help Ella, it woud also help us as a family.

We're hoping that with your kind donations to help fund, Ella will be able to get a intelligent furry friend to support her through her challanges and give her a second chance at life. Thankyou for reading Ella's story.