“If we weren’t provided with the car lease, we would have really struggled”

“Elodie had quite a traumatic birth,” Mum Bronagh tells us. “She was under constant review for months until the doctors eventually told us that Elodie had significant damage to the white matter of her brain.”

Elodie was diagnosed with quadriplegic cerebral palsy when she was just six months old. She’s now four and lives with mum, dad Geordan, five-year-old brother Lochlie, and baby brother Donnie in Ayrshire.

“A lot of Elodie’s daily routine consists of supporting her health and condition. As well as cerebral palsy, she has global developmental delay, uses a feeding tube and is non-verbal.

“She needs to take lots of daily medications and do lots of exercises and stretches. We also have a lot of hospital appointments every week. Elodie sees a physiotherapist, an occupational therapist, an ophthalmologist, the gastro team, and every so often we travel to Glasgow to be meet with neurosurgeons. It’s a lot of travelling, and time spent in hospital.”

Family Fund Mobility Support programme

The family were supported by the Family Fund Mobility Support programme. The programme grants families a lease car, up until the child turns three, when families can then apply to the national Motability scheme. Bronagh and Geordan were leased a Ford Kuga.

Bronagh says: “When Family Fund called us to confirm that we were eligible, I couldn’t believe it. Without the programme, we wouldn’t have been able to get a car lease until Elodie turned three so to have a car much earlier made such a massive difference.

“Before we received the grant, Geordan and I shared a car, but it became difficult to manage taking Elodie to her medical appointments and Geordan travelling to work.”

“The car lease gave our family more freedom and flexibility”

“Elodie also has a lot of bulky medical equipment that we take with us every time we go out – a wheelchair, feeding pump, medication, and a supply bag. The Ford Kuga was big enough to ensure we could travel with everything we needed, safely.

“In total, we had the Ford Kuga for over two years. When Elodie turned three, we were then able to apply for another car lease grant under the national Motability scheme. The transition between the two lease cars was simple. Family Fund allowed us to keep the Ford Kuga until our new car was ready for collection. This was great as I was worried and stressing that we were going to be left without a car. It was reassuring to know we still had the security of having access to a car during this period.

“The Family Fund Mobility Support programme is a helpful service. It gave us the freedom to go out together as a family without worrying about how we’re going to get there. If we weren’t provided with the car lease, we would have really struggled.”