Deandra Christopher, MEd, designs the conditions that let people do their best work across post-secondary accessibility, work-integrated learning (WIL), and employer systems that were not always designed with different ways of thinking, learning, and communicating in mind.

She started in rehabilitation therapy, then spent more than a decade in ABA therapy, autism intake, and family support at a nonprofit agency, experience that shaped how she thinks about environments, not just individuals. From there she moved into accessibility and WIL roles at Sheridan College and George Brown Polytechnic, where her focus shifted to how inclusion actually functions in practice, not just in policy.

Her MEd research at Ontario Tech University examined Universal Design for Learning in non-traditional post-secondary contexts. That work sharpened a career-long question: what do inclusive systems need to do differently when real students, real placements, and real institutional processes are involved?

That question led to a practice-based model for embedding accessibility across the WIL landscape, published and presented at WIL'25 in Oslo in 2025. She has also presented on inclusion and WIL provincially, nationally, and internationally.

Through VELA, Deandra brings this experience to post-secondary institutions, employers, nonprofit organizations, and the individuals and families navigating them. Her approach draws on trauma-informed practice, Applied Behaviour Analysis, adult learning theory, the Social Model of Disability, and ontological inclusion. The work stays individualized and strengths-based while looking beyond the person alone to consider the environments, expectations, and systems around them.

Whether she is supporting a family preparing for a post-secondary transition or an institution building a more inclusive WIL program, the question is the same: what could be designed differently, and who else needs to be at the table?