American Association of Mental Retardation INTERNATIONAL SERVICE AWARD 2004 Presented to Beth Mount For unwavering, dedicated service to people with disabilities by promoting positive images and creating new options through personal, organizational and policy change.

2004 Thanks for Helping Us Get the Life We Want Award Presented by The Self-Advocacy Association of New York State

2004 MOVING MOUNTAINS AWARD For Best Practices in Recruitment, Retention and Training of Direct Support Professionals Presented to Beth Mount and OMRDD for the Everyday Heroes Leadership Initiative For Excellence in Building Direct Support Professional Leadership for Community Inclusion Presented by The National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals and The Research and Training Center on Community Living At the University of Minnesota

TASH 2001 Award for Exemplary Achievement in Print "Through the years, Beth Mount's artwork, publications, and posters have served to inspire us all to realize that every person with a disability is a valuable and productive member of community life. The impact of Beth's 30 year body of work has been extensive and is known throughout the world. Her work has been instrumental in helping people to find meaning in supporting people with disabilities to build their lives."

Beth Mount is a national consultant working with programs throughout the United States to support others to see capacities in people with disabilities. Her groundbreaking work related to Personal Futures Planning promotes the positive futures and images of people with disabilities throughout the world, and consequently demonstrates that all of us count and all of us fit somewhere. In 1981, she founded her consulting organization, Graphic Futures, to establish transformational innovation projects that create new options for people through personal, organizational, and policy change.

For 30 years, Dr. Mount has worked toward the ideal that every person with a disability can be a valued member of community life. She has collaborated on more than 50 publications that tell stories of imagining and implementing positive futures for people with disabilities. Her efforts demonstrate that communities can support the contributions of people with disabilities, and that organizations can adapt to be more person-centered.

Beth is originally from Atlanta, Georgia, where she was greatly influenced by Dr. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement. Her brother was born with multiple medical and learning challenges which certainly shaped her family and life work.

In 1989, Beth moved to New York City and has demonstrated person-centered work with young people with disabilities who are graduating from New York City Schools. She collaborates with Job Path, a New York City Agency that provides innovative individualized supports so that people with disabilities can work, volunteer, and contribute in social and civic life. She and her son, Aaron, are personally engaged with a wide network of self-advocates, parents, support circles, and direct support workers who courageously push the limits of urban segregation, discrimination, and limitation.

Dr. Mount works throughout New York State as a consultant to the New York State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities to promote community inclusion, to develop individualized service designs such as adult "Day Programs Without Walls," and to enhance the status and involvement of direct service staff through the "Everyday Heroes" project. She is affiliated with Mount Sinai Hospital providing Personal Futures Planning for people with Traumatic Brain Injuries.

Beth also works with the Shield Institute Pure Vision Art Studio in Chelsea, an environment that supports visionary artists with disabilities to develop artistic careers. In addition to working directly with artists with disabilities, Beth also uses graphics, photography, film, and fiber art as another way to help people to express their dreams, communicate their values, and tell their stories through art.

Dr. Mount established Capacity Works in 2000, a publishing company that is a forum for the exchange of inspiration, artwork, and ideas related to the journey of personal empowerment and social change. Beth's publications and inspirational artwork incorporate diverse multi-cultural and religious symbols to illustrate numerous stories of personal transformation. Dr. Mount was awarded the "TASH 2001 Positive Images Award for Exemplary Achievement in Print," for her books and posters that inspire person-centered work. She also received the 2003 Northeast Rehabilitation Association Meritorious Service Award and the American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR) 2004 Service Award.