The grant lets you dream a bit for her
Colette and her partner Stephen are parents to Georgia, who just turned six. The family live near Glasgow and Colette works as a part time nanny, while Stephen is Georgia’s full-time carer. They received a Take a Break Scotland grant last year, which they used for family days out.
Georgia has a diagnosis of autism and is pre-verbal with high support needs. She also has arfid and professionals think she may have Global Developmental Delay. Georgia needs support with most tasks, is not yet toilet trained and often uses a wheelchair or buggy to allow her to mobilise to new places.
Tell us about your family
Colette said: “While Georgia isn’t verbal with language she loves watching Disney films and can sing along to several Disney songs. She understands the stories and has favourite characters.
She’s got a great sense of humour and likes slapstick humour, like people walking into walls or whatever.
She needs a high level of supervision and support, so for example she hasn’t much danger awareness. She is still not toilet trained, it’s extremely frustrating that services will only offer us nappies you take on and off with a tape. What she needs is nappy pants, not tape nappies.
We’re on a low income, but I just have to pay for the more expensive pull ups because I want her to get toilet trained and that’s what nappy pants are for. I don’t understand why they’ll only provide us with something that’s basically helping keep her incontinent? With her arfid, getting her to eat is a constant challenge, and her behaviour can be hard to manage.
Our Take a Break grant
We got our grant in December and used it for a very special trip to see ‘Disney on Ice’ in 2026 and for an annual Sealife Centre pass, which is one of Georgia’s safe places. When I saw that Disney on Ice was one I just knew she would love it, but the money for a one-off trip like that would be totally beyond us. Having the freedom of the grant meant we could try for something which would be a risk in such a huge event stadium like the Hydro, but which I knew she would love.
It was very emotional watching her reaction to the show, she was dancing and singing, recognising the logos and characters, her face lit up. It gave us an escape from our normal life, our tried and test places, and she was just alive with it.
It’s continuing that understanding for her as well and building up that confidence – it’s your Disney characters but that it’s an ice-skating show, and she’s accessing that, which is a step in her learning too. You have to keep trying things, you find those interests and that’s how you unlock new experiences for them.
“We also bought an annual pass for Sealife Centre – that’s something that’s calming for her that’s got that sensory element to it that she can access again and again because it works for her. We can go whenever we like, sometimes that’s as a break for all three of us but sometimes just one of us goes and the other parent can rest. The one-off cost is huge but the value we can get out of that as a family is tremendous.”