When Strully founded the New England Center for Children in 1975, autism was nothing like the widespread challenge it is today for countless people and their families. Today, it’s so prevalent it affects one of every 54 people, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.
The rate wasn’t even tracked before 2000. Strully, which started the center on the grounds of the old Taunton State Hospital, has grown the NECC in geography and scope, with a budget exceeding $100 million and a workforce topping 1,300. The center works with autistic children and young adults, offers curricula for other centers, has a graduate degree program for its employees, and studies the disorder, with its staff having written more than 250 peer-reviewed journal articles and presented research at more than 2,000 conferences. A massive facility in the United Arab Emirates opened in 2008, a 33,000-square-foot autism care facility on its Southborough campus opened in 2016, and in 2019 operations began in Lebanon, the 18th country in which NECC operates or consults. Strully has led the way throughout, as NECC expanded its presence across the Middle East in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and elsewhere across the globe including Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, India and Italy. It’s a footprint nearly any Central Massachusetts institution would envy, and a mission that could hardly be more needed or more important.
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