Beth Mount
Research Collaborator
Beth Mount has been a contributor to the research process since 2017, through participating in numerous interviews, virtual co-learning events with fellow breakout actors, and through reviewing draft content for the book manuscript Beloved Economies.
Beth Mount has worked for forty five years toward the ideal that every person with a disability can be a valued member of community life. Her groundbreaking work related to Personal Futures Planning promotes the positive futures and potentials of people with disabilities throughout the world who are working to create more inclusive communities. These global inclusion activists find creative ways to search for and amplify the good in people and grapple together to build more beloved communities.
In 1980, Beth founded Graphic Futures to establish innovation projects that transform options for people by cultivating personal, community and organizational change. These initiatives are designed to generate organizational solutions that are aligned with the priorities of the people, families and allies.
Since 1990, Beth has been engaged with young people in transition from New York City schools while also working to support innovation in provider organizations. Among her partners is Job Path, a NYC agency that provides individualized supports to help people with disabilities work, volunteer, and contribute in social and civic life. One such initiative, “Job Path and Theory U; A collaboration using the Theory U approach to create solutions for disability inclusion in New York State,” was selected as one of the top ten examples of “Creating Breakout Innovation” article by Joanna Levitt Cea and Jess Rimington featured in the 2017 Stanford Social Innovation Review.
For 20 years, Beth worked across New York State as a Person-Centered Planning consultant to New York State’s Office of People with Developmental Disabilities. She maintained a steady dialogue between policy makers and those on the ground through the Individualized Supports Think Tank. She developed countless initiatives to support community inclusion and innovative designs for individualized, self directed supports. Initiatives such as Everyday Heroes and Make a Difference projects are known throughout the world for advancing direct support professionals as allies, activists, and artists of social change.
Dr. Mount is a Senior Practitioner affiliated with the Presencing Institute, a global network of Theory U inspired change makers supported by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She and her partners have hosted more than thirty Leadership Institutes that facilitate innovation by integrating the Theory U methodology into planning with individuals, families, service providers, and government agencies. During 2019 to 2022 Beth is serving as the senior lead consultant hosting 18 Theory U inspired Person Centered Learning Institutes for the New York State Department of Health.
Beth uses creativity and the arts—story quilts, graphics, photography, film, and fiber—as other ways to help people to express their dreams, communicate their values, and tell their stories. This individual and collective art making strengthens deeper listening, validates other ways of knowing, and engages people across difference to co-create. She has collaborated on more than one hundred multimedia publications and artworks that tell the story of imagining and implementing positive futures for people and their communities. These resources and publications are found at InclusionPress.com.
