Autism Accreditation awarded by NAS

We are pleased to announce that Autism Dogs CIC is the first Programme of its type ever to have been awarded Autism Accreditation by the National Autistic Society, the UK’s leading charity for autistic people.

The National Autistic Society’s Autism Accreditation programme was launched over 25 years ago and sets extremely high standards. Autism Dogs CIC now joins the 500+ organizations who hold accreditation.

Following our assessment, Jonny Knowles of National Autistic Society said: Autism Dogs CIC offer a truly personalized service which is based around the needs of each individual. Staff are caring and approachable and highly skilled at supporting autistic people. Feedback from families and the autistic people who have accessed the service is overwhelmingly positive.

Autism Dogs CIC has truly played an important role in 'changing the lives' of some of the people who have accessed their service". Autism Dogs CIC provides autistic people of all ages a fully managed Assistance Dog Programme with on-going education and therapeutic support for each client and their care-givers. An Autism Assistance Dog is trained to help support the needs of an autistic person.

This training will be specific to the individual and may be a physical action such as assisting with a motor dysfunction or to provide emotional support during times of distress. All interventions are tailored to provide optimum support for their handler. However, the dogs value transcends just their training, Autism Assistance Dogs provide their handlers an invaluable friendship.

One of our Founders and Managing Director, Caroline Preston, said: "We are delighted to have been awarded such a highly valued accreditation for our Residential Assistance Dog Programme. It’s a fantastic achievement for Autism Dogs CIC, and a real breakthrough in an area that is growing in demand but has needed 'best practice' guidelines to follow for some time! I hope that the past issues around training Autism Assistance Dogs can now become a thing of the past, and that the fantastic benefit they can bring to an autistic person's life can be finally recognized, respected, and supported in the same way a Guide Dog is.

Working with the National Autistic Society's Accreditation team has been a fantastic experience, in which we have learned a great deal, and we are thrilled that they were so impressed by our methods.