SPaN of MA: Planning Successfully for Life After the IEP

Kelley Challen will discuss how advocates and families of children on IEPs can start planning for successful postsecondary adult life, even before the age of 14. The presentation will include an overview of basic legal requirements for transition assessment and services under IDEA 2004 as well as which knowledge and skill sets are most important to develop when planning for adulthood.

• Understand basic legal requirements for transition assessment and transition services under IDEA
• Define transition assessment and recognize necessary components of a comprehensive transition assessment process
• Learn about key guidance provided by OSERS and OSEP that relates to transition services
• Review evidence-based rationale for beginning transition planning at younger ages
• Name key skills that have been highlighted in research as having the greatest impact on postsecondary success and satisfaction for students who have had IEPs
• Define self-determination
• Understand how to build the most impactful skills using the IEP process

About The Presenter: Kelley Challen, Ed.M., CAS, is Director of Transition Services at NESCA, providing a wide array of services, including individualized transition planning, consultation, coaching, assessment, expert testimony, training, and program development services. She is also the Assistant Director of NESCA, supporting day-to-day operations of the practice.  Ms. Challen is particularly skilled in providing transition assessment and consultation aimed at determining optimal timing for a student’s transition to college, training, adult learning, and/or employment as well as identifying and developing programs and services necessary for minimizing critical skill gaps.  Ms. Challen has been engaged in assessment, development, and direction of transition-focused programming for teenagers and young adults with a wide array of developmental and learning abilities since 2004. She spent several years at the MGH Aspire Program where she founded an array of social, life, and career skill development programs for teens and young adults and has also 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.  While Ms. Challen has special expertise in working with children with autism spectrum disorders, she enjoys working with students with a range of cognitive, learning, communication, social, emotional, and/or behavioral needs. Ms. Challen 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 to meet the growing needs of the families, schools, and communities we serve.