We recently connected with Vicki Casteal and have shared our conversation below.

Vicki, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with talking about how you serve the underserved, because in our view this is one of the most important things the small business community does for society – by serving those who the giant corporations ignore, small business helps create a more inclusive and just world for all of us.

For the last 20 years, I have spent my life supporting others in need. In need of an education, finding their purpose, belonging, making a way when others doubted their abilities. I am a former Intellectual Disabilities Teacher ( commonly known as Special Needs Teacher.) I absolutely loved my job, my students, and my parents. We are to this day, Family. The greatest struggle for me was the underline question that I asked myself at the end of every day, “Did I do enough?” I created a classroom environment that was different than others. Teaching them strategies to survive and thrive after they graduated from high school was my goal. How could I teach them to be as independent as possible, while showing others that they could. They could prepare their own meals, make purchases with little to no support, act appropriately within the community, get, and keep a job. I want so bad for others to see all the possibilities I see in them. As the years when on and preparing them the best that I could with the resources that I had, I began to get more calls from former students and their families. All the calls I received had the same theme, finding quality support and care was a struggle. My students were taught to advocate for themselves and to not shy away from a challenge. Every opportunity is a learning opportunity. We quickly learned that outside of my classroom things were different. Therefore, Next Level Transition Program exist today. Our mission is to not only support our clients with them becoming emerged in their communities but also teaching the community to see pass the disability and see the ability within.

Vicki, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

As stated earlier, I am an Educator. My specialty is supporting individuals with intellectual disabilities. This has been my passion for nearly 20 years. I guess for me, my experiences working in this field came from my time as a child playing with my cousin Stacy. Today, we would consider him to be a child with moderate intellectual disability/Autism. He needed help with expressing himself, teaching him how to go to the restroom, and socialization. Back then, Autism wasn’t known, and families didn’t understand how to support them. The one thing I remember most about Stacy is his quiet smile. That let me know that he understood everything being said and done around him. He just needed more time to get it done. I’ve taken that same love, passion, and commitment for Stacy and shared it with others. I went to college and obtained my degree, to master my craft. I want to be good at what I do. I wanted my students and their family to see the possibilities that many others couldn’t see because they couldn’t get past the DIS in disability. Next Level Transition Program sole purpose is to support these unique individuals in discovering their abilities, while supporting others at the same time. They simply want to belong. Be included. Be happy. Everyone has a purpose and mine is to help them discover theirs and that makes me happy.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I built my reputation without knowing that was what I was doing. You’ve heard the saying about finding a job that you love. Well, that’s what I did. I started as a parent volunteer, substitute teacher, paraprofessional to Special Education Teacher and now a business owner. I’ve learned so much about myself from them. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE my job. I cared for my students until they started calling me family. I worked diligently with their families until they started calling me family. For many years, I hosted special events through the schools such as, proms, cookouts, carnival, mentorships, and gardening club. All of this was done to build relationships among the students, parents, and community. This is how my reputation was built. Either someone heard my name, or a parent referred them, or an agency did. I take great care and pride in what I do.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Well, I guess one lesson I had to unlearn was, not to think I can always do things my way. This is another lesson I learned when teaching this group. There would be many times when I had the lesson planned out and they would ask one question that would change the direction of what I wanted them to learn. When it comes to the business my vision was to get them all jobs and I designed the office to reflect that. They had all these lessons they needed to get done but that has changed. While we still have lessons teaching them how to cook, clean a room, do laundry, and make purchases, etc., they have shown me that they want more experiences. Yes, a job of their own is nice but they want to travel to different places, learn new skills, practice those skills, and simply enjoy being with their friends. I think they have taught me to balance the program more so that is more accommodating to all their needs and wants.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nextleveltransitionprogram.org/
• Instagram: nextleveltransition
• Facebook: Next Level Transition Program, Inc
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/next-level-transition-program-08760b253/