Jan Keddy is a retired teacher and single mother of four children, who has taught most grade levels during her career. Jan’s career spanned the beginning of the inclusion in the early 1980s in Quebec, where she was part of one of the first inclusive junior and senior kindergarten programs, a partnership with McGill University. After teaching in a multi-age resource classroom, she became focused on students with specific exceptionalities and challenges. She completed her first Masters at UNB to help with this work.

Jan then managed a project in Saint John NB, called Early Elementary Intervention Project, working with children at risk for school failure before coming to NS in 1999.

For two years, Jan coordinated the Early Identification and Intervention Services Project (EIIS) and then took over the role of transition coordinator.

For the past 14 years, Jan worked as an Autism Specialist for the Halifax Regional School Board (HRSB) Autism team. As part of this work, she has transitioned over six hundred individuals with ASD into the school system. A crucial part of this job was training, modelling and coaching the teachers, so they would know how to teach students with ASD.

Jan believes passionately that inclusion has had a positive impact for children with exceptionalities and challenges. Indeed inclusion has had a positive impact for all children as they experience differences and diversity at a young age.

However, for meaningful inclusion to be successful, the classroom and learning centre teachers need targeted, hands-on training. From my perspective and over 20 years’ experience, I suggest that training also needs to happen on a larger community basis for individuals with ASD to really have inclusive futures. It takes a community to raise a child—especially a child with ASD.

For help with:

• System navigation
• Structuring your home
• Challenging behaviours
• Preschool programming or inclusion
• Preparation & support for school meetings
• Generalization of school programming
• Inclusion in the community, building independence and adaptive skills
• Teaching skills for after school programs
• Individualized training

Call 902-414-8320 or email us at jankeddyandpartners@gmail.com