Christiane Casserly (click for Bio)

SELA Benefits Coach

Christiane Casserly is a SELA Benefits Coach for the State Early Learning Alliance (SELA), a ground-breaking initiative of Early Learning NH.    

Christiane Casserly has worked in the ECE field for half a decade starting with a work study placement at Rutgers University's Child Study Center. This experience unexpectedly turned into a life-long passion and vocation. 

After moving to New England Chris worked for the federal Head Start program where she learned that supporting families is the best way to impact young children. After serving as a center director, education coordinator and administrator Chris moved on to a position as a program director for the East End Children's workshop in Portland, Maine. This program offered child care and a large before and after school program with deep roots in the Monjoy Hill community. 

Chris worked to obtain a Master's Degree in Education from the University of Maine and next served as director of a developmental therapy program with center, home based and case management services in York County. Christiane Casserly was one of the first adjunct faculty in the new ECE Education program at York County Community College and continued to teach classes for many years.

After meeting her husband and moving to New Hampshire she worked as the director of the lab school and ECE Center at Rivier College in Nashua. While holding this position she became aware of ELNH and attended state wide meetings which were very helpful to becoming oriented to the NH ECE landscape.  A networking contact made at these meetings led to her next position as the Executive Director of Rochester Childcare Center, a large center with a mission of serving children ages 6 months through elementary school.

Chris presented countless professional development workshops for childcare providers for ChildcareAware on a wide variety of topics including a series on the Early Learning Guidelines.

She is a proud founding member of SELA and Rochester Child Care Center benefits hugely from the opportunities offered by SELA membership. It became clear to Chris that the Shared Services model was a solution for sustaining the fragile business model faced by most childcare centers and could help to sustain them into the future. She had the opportunity to learn more about the Shared Services model by attending several national conferences and a study tour and became convinced that it was the best model for New Hampshire. 

Chris was pleased to work on designing the back office "HUB" piloted in Strafford County and has high hopes for expansion of this model. 

Christiane Casserly lives just over the NH border in the community of Shapleigh Maine with her husband. She has 3 children and 5 wonderful grandchildren. She loves to learn about nature and to travel. Chris believes that life is an adventure with new things to be learned every day.