I'm not in Surrey but I can almost promise you CT is NOT the program for this purpose (it's far more concerned with making heads talk and while you can get *some* upper body it's not for things like you describe).
There are a variety of other programs that could work, depending on your final output. Are you looking to do something in 2D or 3D. 2D is like the old fashioned Disney cartoons (Lady and the Tramp, Beauty and the Beast) while 3D is like the modern ones (Moana, Frozen). I assume you want something at least a *little* cartoonish (kids, even those without special needs, identify more with a toonish approach rather than something really realistic).
I would advise you to try out the demos of the programs that might work for you -- within a very short time (say 10-15 minutes max) you ought to get a feel as to whether it's right for you or not, even if you can't quite get everything working (and folks at various forums that support the software will be more than glad to help). I'd suggest Crazy Talk Animator and iClone (with the free Character Creator), from the Real Illusion line of products, and things like Daz3d, Poser and Moho from other lines. All of these have sample resources you can use and see how well you can get going (the good news is that you *can* do what you want, and fairly easily once you master the program you decide upon).
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Mike "ex-genius" Kelley