NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATION, INC
NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATION, INC
Mohonk was established in 1981 in Westport, CT and is incorporated as a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to youth in the United States and worldwide. Today Mohonk offers a wide variety of educational, recreational, and therapeutic programs as well as scholarships and rewards for youth, the most dramatic of which challenged youth to create a community service project in their state or in other countries.
Mohonk began as a center for family and child therapy but quickly expanded to include a residential home for children who had been neglected, abused, orphaned with no family in sight, or thrown out on to the streets with no place to turn.
What makes Mohonk stand out as the first of its kind in the United States and, perhaps, the world are the programs and methods we use. They are based upon our current knowledge of the human brain. We developed therapeutical, psychological, and educational methods that directly effect the development of a child’s brain. We offer free sessions for teachers, psychologists, and social workers in order to become knowledgeable about our groundbreaking and innovative practices. We also, offer three to six week training programs for professionals to provide training and certification to incorporate these practices within their programs. For those that are interested please visit our contact us page.
The director, Dr. David Singer, served as a state psychologist specializing in adolescence before founding Mohonk in 1981. He has also been a private therapist for four decades, and a Visiting Scholar at MIT where he was invited to help adapt what we now know about the human brain to child development and clinical considerations. Dr. Singer also provided Microsoft with educational assessment technology that became the linchpin for incorporating individualized learning styles and the brain development of children worldwide.
MISSION STATEMENTS
We Are All So Much More The Same Than Different …..
….despite our race, our abilities or disabilities, religious beliefs, strengths or weaknesses, physical attributes, or our temperaments. For us that is not just a pleasant cliché. We have seen it in children worldwide. All children love ice cream. All children would rather enjoy and get along at a soccer or basketball game than fight and throw derisions at each other. What child would choose to hate and anger rather than love and good will?
No Such Thing As A Bad Kid
This mission statement rings true in all of our programs. That is our starting point despite what sometimes are inscribed on the historical records of any child, especially adolescents, that are presented to us and despite what a child has done, mistakes that have been made, and attitudes or anger that are sometimes part of a child’s history. This reflects our belief that at heart, in the way our brains work, given the choice, no child would prefer failure over success, be disliked more than liked, and would rather be viewed as “bad” than “good” in the eyes of anyone. Our experience with children brought that home.
WHY NEUROSCIENCE
Neuropsychology is an extension of neuroscience. It is the field of study that relates human behavior to the human brain. Neuropsychology and neuroscience will have a greater impact on child development and education than information technology (IT), artificial intelligence (AI), the wheel, and fire have all had and will increasingly continue to have combined. The reason is quite simple and common sense to those who have even a passing interest in how our brains work. We are approaching the ability to mold and shape a child’s brain to accept the behavioral standards and values of any society, culture, or political persuasion it is exposed to. Raising a child and educating all children will follow in kind. The brain doesn’t care. It does not discriminate starting the first day after birth. As children grow and are surrounded by the world they are raised in, love and understanding can become as acceptable as hate and prejudice. Terrorism can become as acceptable as pacifism.
What this means is that such knowledge can be used to our benefit or our detriment. This has been the concern of the National Institute of Health- Brain Initiative, UNESCO, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the International Centre for Neuroscience and Ethics, among many others.
That is why Mohonk was incorporated as the first of its kind in the United States. It also gave rise to our mission statements that point us towards a bright and beneficial future.
EDUCATIONAL & RECREATIONAL PROGRAMS
Many of our educational and recreational programs are offered throughout the year in Westport and in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. Others are offered as individual scheduled day trips for everything from factories that manufacture baseball bats to meeting Wall Street executives in New York and visiting universities in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts.
In the Berkshires and we have a 185-acre site in Mt Washington, MA. where we offer numerous programs including nature studies that are especially oriented towards conservation and endangered species, wilderness survival experiences, camping, even bee keeping, and organic farming. Our programs are genuinely orientated to encompass the unique abilities, motivation, and interests of every child.
Every year our programs may change based in part on requests by parents, schools, and organizations.
THERAPEUTIC PROGRAMS
We offer parent and child support groups, individual therapy, and a large breadth of intelligence and personality testing including assessments for autism spectrum disorders and learning disabilities. We also have a widely known specialty for gifted and talented children.
SCHOLARSHIPS AND CHALLENGES
Mohonk offers yearly college scholarships, including those for students who might not otherwise qualify for academic awards. We also offer an annual challenge for children to develop and conduct a community service program in their own community or with children in other countries. The awards have been as high as $10,000.
CHILDREN WORLDWIDE
Mohonk raises funds and donated merchandise to help destitute, abandoned, and orphaned children in the United States and many countries. This has included clothes, backpacks, sneakers, bicycles, and anything related to education, especially computers. Students at MIT have repaired computers as needed. We have supported programs in Haiti, Jamaica, Peru, Ghana, Costa Rica, Turkey, India, and the Philippines. We also schedule international trips for students to visit their peers in other countries.
STORIES OF CHILDREN
We continue with a series of stories about Mohonk. The stories that have come out of working with and helping families and children in our local communities and across the world in our 42-year history would fill volumes. Some of the personal stories will pierce your heart and touch you because of your own experiences. Some will make you cry. Others will amaze you-astound you- and humor abounds in many stories as children, for example, mostly adolescents, struggle with such challenges as opening a consignment store in the heart of downtown Westport and dealing with permits, broken toasters, and diamond rings to say nothing of the variety of customers who crossed the threshold of a sign that said: “NOW OPEN!” where Starbucks is now in downtown Westport.
MOHONK’S BOOK
Our book speaks to the history of Mohonk, the reasons for its founding, and an explanation of the seven brain-based methods. Most importantly, it focuses on the use of those methods within the life stories of the children whose lives we touched. It is due to be published in 2023.
If you have the time and interest, please read the attached Chapter 1 of our book, No Such Thing as A Bad Kid, The Neuroscience of Raising Children. This will give you an overview of the children and their stories as well as the leading-edge methods and programs we have developed to engage and benefit children.
VOLUNTEERS, INTERNS, TRAININGS, AND EMPLOYMENT
VOLUNTEER
Volunteering makes the world a better place. If you are retired, that is especially fine. If you are sixteen, that is inspiring We are pleased to develop and sponsor programs for the public on most any topic that someone has the expertise or motivation to offer.
We especially need volunteers to help us with our administrative needs to sustain and continue to develop programs for children in need in the United States and overseas. If you have even just a few hours per week we would be wonderful.
INTERNSHIPS
Internships will become available beginning in the Fall, of 2024. We are also in negotiations with several high schools and universities in Fairfield and New Haven counties to provide credit for one or two-semester internship programs. These internships will be based on learning and applying brain-based methods with children
EMPLOYMENT
We have a number of employment opportunities for professionals in the fields of psychiatry, psychology and social work, and education. Employment is based upon the specific programs we offer. Those employed will be given a base payment per month plus ALL of the income received by the children and families that enroll in our programs.
DONATIONS, GIFTS & FUNDRAISERS
Mohonk relies on donations, gifts, and annual fundraisers to keep our programs and mission alive, and we are a 501c3 tax-deductible organization.
Newman’s Own was one of the first organizations Paul Newman contributed funds during the first year he created Newman’s Own. Paul lived in Westport, Connecticut for over sixty years, as Mohonk has since 1981. Thank you, Paul.
We are the only non-profit organization that we know of where 100% of the donations we receive go directly to the children we serve.