Perkins School for the Blind

Perkins is an international NGO working to create a world where every child can learn, and that includes the 240 million children with disabilities around the world, the vast majority of whom lack access to skilled educators or services.

Perkins School for the Blind is the leader in education services for children and young adults with multiple, complex disabilities and visual impairments. We believe every child can learn, and learning is for life.

Our school is the heart of our organization, where our educators prepare children ages 3-22 with the academics and life skills they need to define their own success.

We are infinitely innovating, addressing longstanding and emerging problems facing our communities, our students, and our families.

Around the world, we partner with families, educators, public schools, and governments to create truly accessible learning opportunities for more children with complex disabilities. We build the capacity of doctors to identify and support children’s special needs. We train teachers to seize early childhood as an opportunity for care, education, and transformation. We partner with governments to redesign inclusive policy frameworks. We unlock the power of parents as leaders in dismantling structural exclusion. Together with our partners and supporters, we are building a world where every child belongs.

Every day at Perkins is about connection, possibility, and opportunity. Around the globe, in nearly 100 countries, Perkins-trained educators are reaching children at risk of being left behind. On campus, we’re constantly innovating to meet the needs of our students. And everywhere in between, we’re responding to the real-world, real-time needs of our community. We’re committed to delivering best-in-class education to children, providing immersive training to professionals, and creating a world of inclusion, accessibility, and opportunity for people with multiple disabilities.

In addition to helping unlock opportunities for the 200 students on our Watertown, MA campus, we’re also committed to:

-Addressing the leading cause of childhood blindness in the United States. Perkins is at the forefront of this critical work around CVI, or Cortical/Cerebral Visual Impairment, identifying kids with CVI and providing them with the specialized resources needed to improve their functional vision. CVI is widely misunderstood and misdiagnosed, but if we reach children early, we can help them make sense of their world. We’re on a mission to reach 50,000 children in the next five years, and you can help make that a reality.

-The first point of contact for any child in Massachusetts diagnosed with a visual impairment or deafblindness, the Infant-Toddler Program provides critical resources, education, and emotional support to every parent and caregiver. With your help, babies and their families will continue to have access to the highly-trained and incredibly dedicated professionals they need during some of the most tumultuous days of their lives.

-There are more than one million children with multiple disabilities and vision impairment in India. Your generosity allows Perkins India to create sustainable and replicable support systems at the local level throughout India, designed to endure for generations to come.

-Training educators from around the world in how to teach children with visual impairments and complex disabilities is how real, global change happens. Your gift to the Educational Leadership Program is an investment in children everywhere. Together, we are developing leaders who will bring their learnings home to their countries so that every child can have real opportunities to learn.

-For 30 years, Perkins School for the Blind has brought critical support to caregivers and communities in Mexico—and with it, new hope and pride. Your gift makes it possible for Perkins to keep training teachers and working within school systems to develop education practices that are truly accessible.

-Only 40% of people with a visual impairment in the US are employed. That means 60% are not currently in the workforce; and a lot of this has to do with the fact that the workplace is not very accessible. Career Launch @ Perkins provides young adults who are visually impaired with the innovative training and experience they need to get career-track jobs.

Our experience, expertise, and commitment to helping people with multiple complex disabilities and visual impairments are demonstrated through the work of our core programs:

Perkins School for the Blind teaches children on campus and supports students and teachers in public schools across the U.S., focusing on academic, social and self-advocacy skill building. Every year, Perkins educates approximately 200 students on campus and supports 1,200 more in community programs, including in the Infant-Toddler Program, through educational partnerships with public schools, and outreach programs. We have established the CVI Center of Excellence to address the leading cause of childhood blindness, CVI or Cortical/Cerebral Visual Impairment. We also emphasize transition services to prepare young adults with vision loss for life after school.

Perkins School for the Blind International Programs reach children in almost 100 countries. Our international programs work with families, teachers, schools, doctors, hospitals, community leaders, universities, and governments to make education accessible to all children—wherever they are and whatever their ability. Perkins believes every child can learn, and we can show you how.

We work to put these children in school, equip educators with specialized skills they need to teach them, and connect families with vital governmental and medical resources. In its first 100 years, the Perkins Educational Leadership Program has trained international scholars who have reached children in almost 100 countries. We are expanding our work in certain countries, where we seek to improve screening and assessment, early intervention programs, school-age education, and family support services.

Perkins Solutions deploys technology to overcome longstanding and emerging accessibility barriers. Since the 1950s, we’ve manufactured and distributed the world’s most popular and dependable braille typewriter, the Perkins Brailler. In keeping with our tradition of staying ahead of technology to ensure people who are blind or visually impaired have what they need to unlock opportunity, we now offer digital accessibility consulting through Perkins Access. These services assist clients in ensuring digital experiences are usable by everyone, and that the online world is fully open to everyone.

Perkins Library has provided accessible reading materials to people with visual impairment and other disabilities since 1837. Since then, we’ve significantly expanded our offerings to serve more people with more nuanced needs. Today, we distribute more than half a million accessible books, magazines, newspapers, DVDs, and more, at no cost to the estimated 28,000 patrons we serve annually. We’ve also led the charge in distributing assistive technologies like refreshable braille displays, while providing a website that enables people to download accessible reading material.

Perkins School for the Blind was established in 1829 as the first school for the blind in the United States. Now, as we were almost 200 years ago, Perkins is committed to opening doors for people with multiple, complex disabilities including blindness, and that includes the 240 million children around the world with disabilities.

Around the globe, in over 95 countries, Perkins-trained educators are reaching children at risk of being left behind. On campus, we’re constantly innovating to meet the needs of our students. And everywhere in between, we’re responding to the real-world, real-time needs of our community.

In FY21, we delivered high-quality education services to 200 children on campus, 1,000 students in Massachusetts and over 700,000 children worldwide.

We’re on a mission to reach 50,000 children with the leading cause of blindness in the next 5 years, establishing The Perkins CVI Center in 2020, including a website for families of children with CVI, CVINow.org.

We are opening The Perkins Innovation Center in 2022, dedicated to accelerating accessibility by bringing together entrepreneurs and the disability community to create real, user tested solutions in every area of life.

We improved digital accessibility for multiple clients, including Clear Ballot, a digital voting technology.

We provided Braille and talking books to thousands of visually impaired Perkins Library patrons, free of charge.

We advocate for disability inclusion to our network of over 60,000 social media followers, educating a broad community on how to avoid ableism, promote inclusive workplaces, understand disabilities, and become advocates themselves.

We educated 1,200 TVIs in disability education through our Perkins eLearning platform, reaching an estimated 12,000 children with blindness and visual impairments.

And, we led the conversation on worldwide disability education at the United Nations Education Summit in September 2022.

Like Helen Keller, who defied public assumption and went on to become a global changemaker, children with multiple disabilities need and deserve their potential to be unlocked. That’s why we’re committed to delivering best-in-class education to children, providing immersive training to professionals and creating a world of inclusion, accessibility and opportunity for people with multiple disabilities.