Director of Transition Services
Kelley Challen, Ed.M., CAS is an expert transition specialist and national speaker who has been engaged in evaluation, development, and direction of transition-focused programming for teenagers and young adults with a wide array of developmental and learning abilities since 2004. While Ms. Challen has special expertise in working with youth with autism, she enjoys working with students with a range of cognitive, learning, communication, social, emotional and/or behavioral needs.
Ms. Challen joined NESCA as Director of Transition Services in 2013. She believes that the transition to postsecondary adulthood activities such as learning, living, and working is an ongoing process–and that there is no age too early or too late to begin planning. Moreover, any transition plan should be person-centered, individualized and include steps beyond the completion of secondary school.
Through her role at NESCA, Ms. Challen provides a wide array of services including individualized transition assessment, planning, consultation, training, and program development services, as well as pre-college coaching. She is particularly skilled in providing transition assessment and consultation aimed at determining optimal timing for a student’s transition to college, technical training, adult learning, and/or employment as well as identifying and developing appropriate programs and services necessary for minimizing critical skill gaps.
Ms. Challen is one of the only professionals in New England who specializes in assisting families in selecting or developing programming as a steppingstone between special education and college participation and has a unique understanding of local postgraduate, pre-college, college support, college transition, postsecondary transition, and 18-22 programs. She is additionally familiar with a great number of approved high school and postsecondary special education placements for students from Massachusetts including public, collaborative, and private programs.
Ms. Challen enjoys the creative and collaborative problem-solving process necessary for successfully transitioning students with complex profiles toward independent adulthood. As such, she is regularly engaged in IEP Team Meetings, program consultations, and case management or student coaching as part of individualized post-12th grade programming. Moreover, she continually works to enhance and expand NESCA’s service offerings in order to meet the growing needs of the families, schools and communities we serve.
When appropriate, Ms. Challen has additionally provided expert witness testimony for families and school districts engaged in due process hearings or engaged in legal proceedings centering on transition assessment, services and/or programming—locally and nationally.
Nearly two decades ago, Ms. Challen began her work with youth with special needs working as a counselor for children and adolescents at Camp Good Times, a former program of Milestones Day School. She then spent several years at the Aspire Program (a Mass General for Children program; formerly YouthCare) where she founded an array of social, life and career skill development programs for teens and young adults with Asperger’s Syndrome and related profiles. Also, she worked at the Northeast Arc as Program Director for the Spotlight Program, a drama-based social pragmatics program, serving youth with a wide range of diagnoses and collaborating with several school districts to design in-house social skill and transition programs.
Ms. Challen received her Master’s Degree and Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study in Risk and Prevention Counseling from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. While training and obtaining certification as a school guidance counselor, she completed her practicum work at Boston Latin School focusing on competitive college counseling.
Ms. Challen has worked on multiple committees involved in the Massachusetts DESE IEP Improvement Project, served as a Mentor for the Transition Leadership Program at UMass Boston, participated as a member of B-SET Boston Workforce Development Task Force, been an ongoing member of the Program Committee for the Association for Autism and Neurodiversity (AANE), and is a member of the New Hampshire Transition State Community of Practice (COP).
She is also co-author of the chapter, “Technologies to Support Interventions for Social-Emotional Intelligence, Self-Awareness, Personality Style, and Self-Regulation,” for the book Technology Tools for Students with Autism: Innovations that Enhance Independence and Learning.
Most importantly, she is the mother of two elementary-aged children and two puggles who keep her on her toes and continually help to expand her abilities for inventive and flexible thinking!
A selection of Ms. Challen’s blog posts for NESCA Notes:
- Transition Assessment: What Are You Testing that Hasn’t Already been Tested? – July 10, 2023
- So, You Are Taking a Leave of Absence from College—Now What? – June 5, 2023
- Age of Majority: Preparing Students to Make Special Education Decisions as Adults – January 30, 2023
- College Myth Buster – Four-Year College Degrees Are Most Often Not Completed in Four Years – October 24, 2022
- Making the Most of Summer – Setting a Few Life Skill Goals (for College and Life in General after High School) – July 18, 2022
- Testing Outside the Box – Vocational Assessments for Nonverbal, Nonreading and/or Hard-to-Test Students – June 20, 2022
- Transition Assessment: How to Prepare for the Team Meeting – May 9, 2022
- Transition Planning: The Important Difference Between Postsecondary Goals and Annual Goals – March 28, 2022
- Assessing Work Motivation and Values – December 16, 2021
- Vocational Aptitude Testing – November 4, 2021
- Vocational Assessment and Transition Planning – September 23, 2021
- Student Involvement in IEPs – Part 2 – August 12, 2021
- Student Involvement in IEPs: Ten Tips to Help MS Students Get Started – Part 1 – July 15, 2021
- Why Work Matters for Teens – June 3, 2021
- Why Taking Competency Tests can be Critical for Transition and College Planning – May 6, 2021
- Diplomas, Graduation Dates and IEP Transition Services Revisited – April 22, 2021
- College Transition – Important Considerations for Students who are Making a Final Decision – March 11, 2021
- Transition Assessment: What is it? How is it different from neuropsychological evaluation? – December 17, 2020
- Linking Strengths and Interests to College Majors and Careers: The MassHire Career Information System – November 5, 2020
- Transition Goals: What are they and why do they matter in the IEP process? – September 20, 2020
- Transition Planning Timelines for Students with Disabilities – July 2, 2020
- Life Skills for College to Work on Now – Part 2 – April 23, 2020
- Life Skills for College to Work on Now – Part 1 – April 16, 2020
- Transition Planning: “Remote” Work-based Learning Experiences – April 9, 2020
- 7 Ways to Build Work-readiness from Your Couch – March 19, 2020
- Planning and Preparing for College from Home during Covid-19 – March 15, 2020
- Transition Planning at IEP Team Meetings – The Good, The Fun and The Beautiful- January 27, 2020
- Transition Planning for Adulthood – It Starts at Birth – August 5, 2019
- Nearly 1/3 of College Students Drop out or Transfer by the End of Freshman Year: What Can We Do Differently? – December 3, 2018
- Transition Planning: Let’s Talk about Graduation Dates for Students on IEPs – April 16, 2018
- Pre-Employment Transition Services – What Are They and Who is Eligible? – January 30, 2018
- Transition Planning: The Missing Link Between Special Education and Successful Adulthood – January 15, 2018
Ms. Challen discusses Transition Assessment Assessment with Nancy Mader, Previous Director of Transition Projects at FCSN:
Welcome to LINKed over Lunch! We are discussing Transition Assessment with Kelley Challen, Director of Transition Services at NESCA.
Posted by Federation for Children with Special Needs on Thursday, December 5, 2019
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