History
For more than 100 years, Sargent Rehabilitation Center has been a leader in the education and rehabilitation industry, restoring cognitive and physical function to children and young adults resulting in exceptional outcomes.
The Sargent Center traces its roots back to 1917, when 25 pioneering women opened the Providence School of Lipreading. It incorporated as the he Providence League for the Hard of Hearing and later became the first rehabilitation technology program offering assistive listening devices. It remained committed to improving the lives of those with hearing disabilities well into the 1950s. Today the Center's incorporated name is Sargent Rehabilitation Center, and it is commonly known as the Sargent Center.
By the 1960s, the center was offering speech pathology services and developed the first outpatient clinic for adult stroke victims. In 1969, spearheaded by past CEO Marilyn Serra, and her colleagues in medicine and rehabilitation, Sargent opened a language and speech preschool center. By 1975 the organization had expanded its capacity to serve older children within a comprehensive Day School Program.
Throughout its history, the Center has been a pioneer in rehabilitative care. The Center developed the first aural rehabilitation program for the elderly and the first occupational health and safety industrial audiology program. The traumatic brain injury program was started in 1986 and the adolescent brain injury unit was added in 1988.
In 1997, Sargent moved to its current 3-acre campus at 800 Quaker Lane in Warwick, RI.
Today
The Sargent Center concentrates its operations in the areas of neuro-rehabilitation (brain injury, concussion, stroke, injury), school programs for students with disabilities (pre-school, elementary, secondary and transitional living-community vocational training with high school diploma, as well as a post-secondary prep program) and the Regional Resource Center (RRC) (Professional Training, Public Policy Institute, Family Education & Advocacy.) In 2017 Sargent Rehabilitation Center celebrated 100 years of providing comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation and medical-educational-rehabilitation services to disabled children, adults and their families.
Our expertise has recently expanded to include behavioral health and mental health for school aged students. Our short term step-down services include a comprehensive, coordinated transitioning of care from the inpatient setting before returning or re-entering the school community. Other programs provide longer stay placements for diagnostic evaluation, or classroom alternatives from a public school setting.
All of our education programs provide coordinated comprehensive care addressing cognitive, physical, medical and behavioral rehabilitation in order to achieve outcomes that result in the advancement to community learning, living, employment and productivity.
Our mission is supported by the work at the Regional Resource Center (RRC) which opened in 2012 designed as the first statewide comprehensive resource program with the purpose to convene knowledge. The RRC consists of a Public Policy Institute, Family Academy, and a Center for Professional Development. The RRC excels by offering RRC members with customized technical assistance contracts, conferencing, consultation and professional development. The RRC Policy Institute convenes to problem solve systemic issues. The RRC Family Academy offers families a voice and training to influence, navigate, and effectively advocate for families as valued participants within the system of care that impacts their lives.