For almost 60 years the Schwartz Center for Children (formerly the I.H. Schwartz Children’s Rehabilitation Center) has brought hope, inspiration, and comfort to families in Southeastern Massachusetts, providing therapy, medical care, education, and family support to children with disabilities and special health care needs. Throughout its history, the Center’s persistence, entrepreneurial spirit, and determination have enabled it to care for more than 20,000 children.  

The Center was established in 1947 by parents seeking care for their children with cerebral palsy. They organized and began the years of work that would build a local clinic to provide the care and attention their children, and others in the community, needed and deserved.

In 2005, Stanley Goldstein, a resident of North Dartmouth, unsolicited, offered the Center a gift of four acres of property in that town as a site for the Center’s new building. Mr. Goldstein had no previous relationship with the Center, but, having traveled and witnessed the difficult conditions of facilities and services for children with disabilities in the Middle East, he formed a personal commitment to contribute to the care of children with disabilities at home. Mr. Goldstein had been observing our present facility and daily operations for some time, and, when an article appeared in The Standard Times regarding the Center’s intent to build a new facility, Mr. Goldstein offered the Center his land.

Over the next several months, the staff and board of the agency evaluated the potential impact of the gift; subsequently, the Board accepted it, with deep gratitude, and decided to make the parcel the site for the Center’s new building. The property is set back from the road in a beautiful wooded area and the spacious lot enables the Center to keep everything in the building on one level. Additional benefits of the new Center include the following:

- Being away from busy streets improves the safety of children, staff, and visitors
  entering and leaving the grounds.
- Improved and increased parking makes visiting the Center much more
  convenient.
- Increased property provides wonderful areas for outdoor exercise, therapy, and
  play.
- Convenient site located just one mile from Route 6, and Interstate 195, provides
  easy and convenient access for families and staff who live throughout the area.

Expanded building size, from 11,000 to 19,000 square feet, increases classroom and therapy spaces, expands Living Skills Program area and contains a parent resource and information room.

Opened in September of 2006, the new facility is fully air-conditioned and furnished, with room for future expansion. It contains ample treatment space, more classroom space, a community meeting room, parent resource room, conference rooms, staff meeting room, more efficient administrative and clinical areas, and the Center’s own therapy pool.

For more information and/or to visit with the Center contact 508.996.3391.