NAMI National Board of Directors
2005-2011
Carol Caruso, Second Vice President
Carol Caruso has a Master of Creative Arts Therapy Degree from Hahnemann University in Philadelphia. She has worked in mental health, with both children's and adult services, for almost thirty years. Her administrative experience covers residential, case management, day treatment and future care planning. She is currently employed by Montgomery County (PA) Emergency Services as director of their Crisis Residential Program ("The Ranch House"), an eight bed short-term treatment unit designed as an alternative to in-patient hospitalization. She has served in this position for over six years.
Carol joined NAMI in 1990 in response to issues with her foster son. Carol joined her local board of directors and served as president from 1997 to 2001. To assist in rebuilding her state organization after near collapse in 2000, Carol joined her state board that year and has served as president of NAMI Pennsylvania since 2001. Carol has also served as secretary of NAMI's State President's Council and was a member of NAMI's Joint Task Force on Consumer Inclusion. Carol is a Family to Family teacher, trainer, and state coordinator, as well as a support group facilitator and trainer, and a Provider Education Course team member.
Carol has also been a member of her county's Mental Health Committee for fifteen years and served as chair of their Education Sub-Committee for ten years (and started "Walk Beside Me", an annual Walk to increase awareness and understanding of mental illness, celebrating its' 15th year in May of 2006!).
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