The Victory Center, Inc.

The Victory Center began with a simple but powerful belief: every child deserves the opportunity to learn, grow, and build a meaningful life.

Our story began with founders Judy and Barry Nelson, who saw a need for more individualized and effective educational opportunities for children with autism. What started with a family’s desire to create something better grew into a lasting mission to serve children, young adults, and their families. With the support of early advocates like Dr. Michael Alessandri, that vision became The Victory Center for Autism and Related Disabilities.

Today, The Victory Center is a nonprofit, nonsectarian school and center serving individuals with autism and related disabilities from childhood through young adulthood. Our programs provide individualized, evidence-based, ABA-based education in a structured classroom environment, with instruction designed around each student’s unique goals, abilities, and needs.

Students work on more than academics. Our programming includes language arts, reading, math, science, communication, social skills, emotional regulation, independent living skills, physical fitness, and reduction of maladaptive behaviors. As students grow, our programs expand with them, incorporating community-based instruction, vocational development, employment skills, communication, and greater independence.

At the heart of our work is the belief that progress can look different for every student. For one, it may be learning to communicate a need. For another, navigating the community independently, developing a vocational skill, or gaining the confidence to try something new.

For families, The Victory Center is more than a school. It is a place where their children are understood, challenged, supported, and given the opportunity to keep growing.

And that is the legacy Judy and Barry began: creating a place where every victory, big or small, is worth celebrating.