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https://www.assistancedogs.org.uk/information-hub/assistance-dogs-emotional-support-dogs-and-therapy-dogs/ hello i’d be interested to understand if anyone.has experience of Assistance Dogs especially for autistic children of different ages for emotional support and therapy There was a prior thread on this topic on EDF 10 hrs ago but it had limited experiences and there was a (claimed) change in UK legislation in 2019. Whilst the industry appears unregulated/unlicensed, there are several providers (approx 15, perhaps more) who claim to have fully trained dogs or say that they can help families to train a puppy/young dog over the 18-24 months. The latter obviously comes with a need for strong commitment to the challenge. Costs for a fully trained assistance dog are quoted at £13-15k albeit they claim £23k total cost to train the dog. On the one hand, this could potentially be a useful solution for some families if such a dog was truly trained as their websites claim and such a dog was accepted in public places and schools etc… On the other hand, I don’t think that I’ve ever seen an assistance dog of this type or in this context (only for a blind or partially sighted person) and hence a real risk of fraud or exploitation! The SEN challenge for families coupled with limited resources in schools or from local authorities or the NHS as well as the extremely challenging experience of many families with schools offering little or no support or making the situation worse leaves a big risk of lots of different types of fraud and or exploitation in this area.
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