Mary Beth Caruso

Outreach Services

Director

Mary Beth Caruso has led Outreach Services for Perkins since 1990. As director, Beth has responsibility for Short Courses weekend programs for school age students who attend their local public schools, four summer programs (2 Elementary Programs, Employment Program, Independent Living Skills Program), Services to Elders (both community training and campus-based Elder Learning Center), and the Low Vision Clinic. Previously, she also supervised itinerant TVI and O&M Satellite Services in Western Massachusetts and on Cape Cod, as well as the Perkins Training Center which offers training activities for both professionals and parents.

Beth is a Certified Vision Rehabilitation Therapist (CVRT) through the Academy for Certification of Vision Rehabilitation & Education Professionals (ACVREP). Through the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, she is a Licensed Certified Social Worker (LCSW) and holds Educators Certificates: Elementary, Middle School and Special Needs. Beth has a Master's in Education, specializing in rehabilitation teaching for the blind, and a bachelor's degree in Elementary and Special Education from Boston College. She earned a graduate certificate in Adapting the Curriculum Frameworks from the University of Massachusetts, and completed the Academy for Executive Leadership under the Federal Government Rehabilitation Services Administration National Executive Leadership Institute. She completed Tier III of the Massachusetts State Agency Management Development Program.

Prior to coming to Perkins, Beth was the Region III Director for the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind (MCB) overseeing vocational rehabilitation, social services, rehabilitation teaching, children's services and interns in northeastern Massachusetts. She represented MCB on the Massachusetts Governor's Commission on Employment of the Handicapped. Beth developed curriculum and served as Adjunct Faculty/Clinical Supervisor in the Boston College Visually Handicapped Studies Graduate Program.

Beth is an Advisory Committee member for the New England Center Deafblind Project (NEC), a member of the Interagency Committee on Vision and Aging (ICVA), AER, CEC and AMESVI. She is on the Massachusetts Department of Education (DOE) work group for the Ten Step Guide Revised Edition 2006: Specialized Educational Assessments for Students with Visual Impairment or Deafblindness and is the COSB CLIPS Editor for Howe's Now, the publication of the Council of Schools for the Blind. Beth has been a National Trainer and Advisory Committee Member for the American Foundation for the Blind National Literacy Center and served on the Panel of Experts for the Centers for Disease Control Project "AIDS Prevention Education."

Beth has been the primary faculty at Perkins Outreach Summer Institutes, with credit provided through UMass-Boston, presented at international conferences, national, regional and local conferences, meetings, workshops and in-service sessions. She also provided training in Eastern Europe on integration of children, who are blind, in the public schools. She has published in the Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness. Beth is the recipient of the Principals of Schools for the Blind (POSB) Outstanding Provider of Outreach Services and the Award of Excellence in Education presented by the Northeast Chapter of the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired (NE/AER).