Today I took my friends son, Jacob, who has Autism and ADHD to Yawa Aquatic Centre.

I knew Cérge had recently launched there and I had used Cérge before so felt very safe to use it again at Yawa.

Taking Jacob was exciting, daunting and also something I really wanted to do for him. He can get very overwhelmed in areas of high stimulation and lots of people and if he doesn’t have something to focus on.

This can result in it being hard to get through to him when we need him to follow directions to complete tasks before our fun activities, whatever they may be that day.

We used the Cérge Visual Story and Access Guide to show Jacob the place and he was able to see pictures of where we were going and what he may feel, hear and see. Sooooooo helpful!

Arriving at Yawa we were greeted by happy and amazing staff. I’d sent the notification through the Cérge app and let them know when we were arriving and that we needed to get through the reception area and into the pool as quickly as possible for the kids.

The staff didn’t treat the kids any different, which was fantastic, we felt welcomed and were gotten through the payment process quickly and got into the change rooms and pool before we knew it!

We had a fantastic time and it was so good seeing Jacob smile and enjoy himself! I took my daughter too and she also had a ball.

It was really amazing.

On the way out, someone had accidentally hit my car. This was a bit of bad luck and it sucked. I was feeling stressed as I had to manage two kids, get the details of the driver, insurance ahhhhhhhh!!!

The benefit was though that the staff knew we had to get organised and details etc quickly due to the kids. So the amazing service extended out to even help me with this. They truly helped me!

They went above and beyond and I was so pleased!!

I felt no shame or worry that they were going to judge the kids, it was so freeing!!!

Thank you! Jacob will be back!!