What is The Open Minds Foundation?
The Open Minds Foundation is a non-profit, charitable organization, established to raise awareness of and educate on the dangers of coercion and coercive control within our societies, reducing its impact, and in the long term, eliminating it altogether. What is coercion?Support our cause +Our Priorities
We are most concerned about young people (ages 5-18), as studies have shown they are most likely to be coerced. In fact this is the time for young people to be learning about critical thinking and how to recognize coercion in its many forms. We are also interested in educating caregivers, educators and parents of young people, as well as legal professionals and medical advisors in order to raise all-around awareness of coercion and coercive control.
The Open Minds Foundation brings together a collective of like-minded individuals, who either have knowledge and interest in coercion or first-hand experience of coercive control. Our board of trustees all have personal experience with the issue, and our wider community of experts are drawn from a range of backgrounds including academia, healthcare, therapy, law and community leadership.
The Open Minds Foundation is a registered charitable organization in the US and is currently pursuing charitable status in the UK.
“The key to an open mind is doubt – the freedom to agree or disagree with any idea or belief, even one’s own, as one sees fit.”
-Alan W. Scheflin
The Open Minds Foundation: Mission & Vision
In line with our desire to create a safer and more open society, our work with young people, their educators, parents and caregivers, seeks to support our Vision and Mission:
Our Vision:
A world protected from coercion.
Our Mission:
To help individuals and families recognize and resist coercion.
Our PURPOSE:
To champion initiatives that promote critical thinking, resist coercive control and advocate for individual freedom and autonomy.
Our Promise:
To find ways to use critical thinking and legal precedents to minimize the harmful effects of coercion.
Our Values:
Integrity, continuous improvement, transparency and collaboration.
Stop Mandated Shunning: Mission & Vision
Our objective is to be heard and to protect current and future members of high-control groups from the practice of mandated shunning.
Our Vision:
An end to mandated shunning.
Our Mission:
To research and quantify the impact of Mandated Shunning
Our PURPOSE:
To lobby for International Human Rights Legislation that specifically recognises and prevents mandated shunning.
“When you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer.”
-Stevie Wonder
