Michelli Castañeda Email & Phone Number

Michelli Castañeda is the Strengthening Families Program Manager at Prevent Child Abuse Arizona. She began her career teaching high school chemistry, and later moved into an instructional coaching role with Teach For America. She coached teachers in Chicago across 16 schools, and designed and facilitated training sessions for groups ranging from 20 to more than 300. Her work also included helping to run the region's first leadership development program for a cohort of 30 teachers. Michelli returned home to join the Teach For America - Phoenix staff. There, she designed and facilitated a values-based leadership development program for 60 West Valley teachers. She also helped redesign the region’s teacher coaching model, and later helped redesign and facilitate the orientation program for 135 new teachers. Michelli graduated with honors from ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. While there, she completed legal internships with the Arizona Court of Appeals, the ACLU of Arizona, the ASU Family and Juvenile Justice Clinic, and Defenders of Children. After law school, Michelli joined Valley Leadership's staff where she was responsible for designing and running the organization's first fully virtual leadership development program. That program served more than 200 participants in two years' time, and became the foundation upon which Valley Leadership's new program suite was built.Michelli received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Arizona and a master’s degree in secondary education from Arizona State University.