Meet Tara Montague, President, Mary’s Place Pediatric Rehab in Marlton, NJ
Established in 2004, Mary’s Place Pediatric Rehab has become one of the premiere therapy facilities offering speech, language, and occupational therapy services in Southern New Jersey. Dedicated, involved parents, along with the highly skilled team at Mary’s Place, work together to provide the best experience and outcome for each child.
Many children need additional help to allow them to reach their maximum potential. Speech deficits, language delays and inadequate self help skills can impact a child’s everyday life. It’s frustrating to both the child and their entire family when these types of problems interfere with daily routines. More importantly, these problems can have significant future implications in a child’s ability to succeed academically, emotionally, and socially.
Mary’s Place helps children to lead better lives. Speech therapy assists in gaining and/or improving their ability to functionally communicate with those around them. Occupational therapy works to help children learn to function successfully and fully participate at home, school, and play. As these skills begin to emerge the child begins to flourish. Families see a reduction in the stresses that they face at home due to their child’s needs. The child is happier as they become less frustrated and learn to accomplish the things that they want.
Mary’s Place helps to create a better home environment for the entire family by helping each child reach their maximum potential in a caring, safe, results-oriented environment.
Mary’s Place accepts most health insurance plans and has also created discounted plans for families paying for services outside of insurance. Additionally, Mary’s Place has contracts with school districts where a therapist treats at the school site or students individually receive services at the office.
Montague is one of the owners of Mary’s Place as well as Mom to its namesake, Mary. As President, she oversees all of the operations of the company. After 6 years of taking her own child to different facilities for various therapies, she felt that the current offering that existed was missing something. That something was what Montague set out to achieve when, along with her husband, she opened Mary’s Place Pediatric Rehab. Although she had never worked in the medical field before, she was able to draw from her professional experience in public relations and marketing along with her personal experiences raising a child with special needs. Armed with the mission statement, “To help children reach their maximum potential in a friendly, caring, family-oriented environment,” Montague has developed Mary’s Place into a successful small business that has been in operation for the past 5 years. They currently employ 8 full-time and 5 part-time staff members and have plans to add more full time staff in the fall and early 2010. The company has continued to grow and thrive under her leadership and guidance.
Montague has extensive experience in the special needs community, including state agencies and programs, doctors, nursing, durable medical equipment and therapy. She is a graduate of Hunter College in New York City. Prior to having Mary, she worked for AAA Central-West Jersey as a Public/Legislative Affairs Assistant and at Cathy Saypol Public Relations in NYC.
She was rewarded for her hard work when she was voted one of the Top Ten Women in Business 2006 by South Jersey Magazine. Since then, the Mary’s Place name has become synonymous with quality therapy care in South Jersey.
In response to frequent inquiries from families in the community Tara and Mary’s Place, along with 2 other local businesses, co-sponsored an informational conference for parents of children with special needs – Take Control: Invest in Your Child, April 2009. This was a full day event which consisted of a series of presentations and discussions regarding the behavioral challenges of children with special needs, therapy services, financial planning, Individualized Educational Plans and autism awareness. A second parent conference, Take Control: Building the Skills for a Successful Tomorrow is scheduled for October 22, 2009 and a professional series conference is being planned for spring 2010.
The American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA) recognizes May as Better Hearing and Speech Month. Mary’s Place recognized it too by collecting books from our families and the general community to donate to the Reach Out and Read program at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The ROR program educates physicians and nurses on the importance of literacy and reading to children for their development. Mary’s Place has collected approximately 500 books for the program. In addition, Mary’s Place, working in conjunction with Temple University, offered hearing screenings to the community this past July.
Tara has taken an active role within the autism community through numerous fundraising activities for Autism Speaks. She has sponsored a walk team for the annual Walk Now for Autism fundraiser for the second straight year. Through Mary’s Place, two separate fundraisers to benefit Autism Speaks have been established this year as well. The first was a “sensory night” at Pump it Up in Marlton, NJ and the second was at Chick-fil-A in Marlton, NJ.
Tara has also been involved with a variety of disability and parent support organizations in her role as President of Mary’s Place and as a parent of a special needs child herself. She is both well known and respected within the disability community and is frequently sought out for advice and recommendations by both peers and parents.
Montague also handles all of the marketing functions of Mary’s Place as part of her role as President. Marketing activities includes frequent participation in events geared to parents of children with special needs such as the Division of Developmental Disabilities’ Provider Fairs, the Katz JCC Individuals with Special Needs Resource Fair and the Cherry Hill Special Education PTA Information Fair. Mary’s Place does use email to keep in contact with the families of both past and potential patients. Montague has just started to use more social media platforms to communicate with customers as well. However, word of mouth referrals due to exceptional customer service and results-driven therapy continue to comprise a large number of the new patients seen at Mary’s Place every year.
For more information about Mary’s Place Rehab visit: www.marysplacerehab.com