Arsenal Family and Children’s Center was founded in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh in 1953 by pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock. Then on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Dr. Spock designed the Center as a training site for pediatric students to study normal child development in the context of a neighborhood that was highly ethnic (Eastern European) and stable. Dr. Spock believed this would secure longitudinal study of child growth and development across generations.

In 1980 Arsenal became a private, non-profit organization, and in 1986, at the request of the Mon Valley Committee for the Unemployed, Arsenal established a second site in the City of Clairton. In 2003, the Lawrenceville site was relocated to the Friendship area of Pittsburgh as a building was purchased through the generosity of an anonymous donor. Now operating as a developmental preschool and social service agency, the Center offers an array of programs and services for young children age birth to ten and their families in both locations, and it continues as a training site for colleges and universities in the Pittsburgh community.

Arsenal remains committed to focus on the needs of children as the point of departure for all of its programming. We are fortunate to have a stable, professional staff, many of whom have been at Arsenal for ten years or longer, who are uniquely capable of serving the diversity of the children in our programs.