Celia Mooradian, MLIS ✷
Disability Services Provider
About Celia.
Agency: Options for College Success
HQ: Evanston, Illinois, USA
Client Range: Continental US
Client Age: Teens, Adults (18+)
Languages: English, Japanese, Spanish
Accepting New Clients? Yes
Sessions Offered: Virtually + In-Person
Celia (they/them) is a mixed, LGBTQIA+ sentient reference desk with almost 30 years of personal neurodivergent experience, and 10+ years of experience working directly with other neurodivergent folks. In 2020, their love for learning led them to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School of Information and Library Sciences. Their masters coursework focused on disability and trauma-informed information services, neurodivergent-centered literacy instruction, and community programming.
Transitioning from school-based services to adult disability services is one of the most pivotal journeys of a disabled young adults' life. As a disability services provider, Celia's greatest goal is to affirm their clients' agency in their journeys toward an autonomous, community-based adulthood. Celia's second greatest goal is to model the progress we can achieve when we hold empathy and compassion for ourselves on the journey. Shame is the antithesis of joy!
Education and/or Training institute
Master of Library and Information Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, conferred 2021
Superwell Specialties.
Gifted-Specific Support
Although we tend to talk about our clients’ experiences [at Options for College Success] as "neurodivergent," we would not bar clientele that identify as gifted!
Creative-Specific Support (Individual, Group)
Our agency offers weekly group programming for creative writers and artists of all media types. We also host special improv and performance workshops with Piven Theatre.
In individual appointments, I incorporate my 10 years of dance instruction so participants can develop their own body-mind connections, find novel ways of regulating their nervous systems during sensory over- or underwhelm, and practice co-regulation in safe ways.
I find that most of our creative clients are visual thinkers--for visual thinkers, we provide opportunities to process information and experiences by creating visual art, using visual organizers/planners, and collaborate to develop visual modes of communication in individual appointments.
Neurodivergent-Specific Support (Individual, Parent, Family, Group)
Our agency provides post-secondary transition services to neurodivergent young adults (age 17+) to enable them to live autonomously within their community. Care plans are individualized to best meet the actual needs and goals of our clients. Individual services encompass all areas of post-secondary life, from academic and vocational coaching, to support navigating and managing state and federal benefits, to in-home case management for individuals with higher support needs, as well as ongoing social-emotional support in navigating a world not designed for us.
Because our staff is entirely neurodivergent, the group program curricula we've developed center neurodivergent perspectives and experiences and directly address neurodivergent needs, questions, and interests.
The neurodivergent community is at much higher risk for developmental, social, and physical trauma, so all of our services are trauma-informed. Our services are also sensory-safe. All services can be adjusted to meet clients' sensory and physical accessibility needs, our center hosts a sensory decompression room, and has ADA compliant entryways and bathrooms.
Other Areas of Specialization:
Autism/ASD
Learning Disabilities
ADHD
Fun Stuff.
How do your clients describe you?
The piece of feedback I routinely get is that my clients feel (often for the first time in their lives) safe to be fully themselves.
What are your favorite books?
Rose (1988), Li Young Lee (poetry); Crying in H-Mart (2021), Michelle Zauner (memoir); Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (1994), bell hooks (non-fiction); Tale of Genji (2001), Murasaki Shikibu, trans. Royall Tyler (fiction); Neuroqueer Heresies (2021), Nick Walker (non-fiction)
What is one of your quirks/special talents?
I've set the high score on Frogger at every arcade I've been to!
What are your creative outlets?
My executive dysfunction means I cannot function unless I approach everything as a creative process. But some creative *practices* I am devoted to include teaching vernacular jazz dances, writing and translating poetry, and expressing/exploring my own visual & tactile experiences through mixed media projects.
What would you do with $10M USD?
If our agency received $10M, I would build a space to house the neurodivergence book and resource collection we've been slowly developing and cataloging! My dream for our agency is to circulate neurodiversity-affirming resources on neurodivergence at no cost to other neurodivergent folks looking to learn more about themselves, to parents of neurodivergent kids navigating life post-Dx, and to other service providers, educators, and librarians. We would also have a "library of things," i.e. adaptive technologies (cooking equipment, AAC, mobility devices, etc) that library users could check out.
