Betsy McGinnity

Training & Educational Resources Program

Director 

The Training & Educational Resources Program brings together information, training and educational resource functions in order to reach more people and increase the impact that these services have on the lives of people who are blind, visually impaired, deafblind, and with or without other disabilities. 

Betsy oversees these services which include the Perkins Training Center, Perkins Office of the National Consortium on Deaf-Blindness, Hilton/Perkins National Technical Assistance Activities, Hayes Research Library and Archives, Perkins Publications, Perkins History Museum, and online resources and educational materials including webcasts and Perkins Scout.  

Betsy received her M.Ed in Special Education at the University of Washington in Seattle. After several years working as a teacher of students with deafblindness and severe disabilities in public and state schools, Betsy started her career at Perkins in 1980 as the Coordinator of Vocational Services in the Deafblind Program. During her years in the Deafblind Program, she worked on several federal grants and eventually also coordinated transition services.

Betsy joined the Hilton/Perkins staff in 1993 as one of the first staff hired to establish DB-LINK, the National Information Clearinghouse on Children Who Are Deaf-Blind. In 1998, she also became the Coordinator of Information Services responsible for site coordination of DB-LINK and the Hayes Research Library and Archives.

Betsy was also the coordinator of the Perkins History Museum project and worked on the Perkins History book. She is a member a team developing the Information Clearinghouse and also serves on the content committee for Perkins Publications.