The Joseph Samuel Isicoff Memorial Fund
About JSIMF
The Joseph Samuel Isicoff Memorial Fund, Inc. was established by Steven and Laurel Isicoff in memory of their son, Joseph Samuel Isicoff who died tragically on March 14, 2004, at the age of 21. The Fund was created to raise money to fund programs in existence or, if such programs didn't exist, to create a program that would provide resources for counseling, tutoring and academic intervention to assist low-income children or children in foster care with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). ADD/ADHD refers to a family of related chronic neurobiological disorders that interfere with an individual's capacity to regulate activity level (hyperactivity), inhibit behavior (impulsivity), and attend to tasks (inattention) in developmentally approriate ways. Children with ADD/ADHD have functional impairment across multiple settings including home, school, and peer relationships. ADD/ADHD has also been shown to have long term -adverse effects on academic performance, vocational sucess, and social-emotional development. With intervention every aspect of these children's lives can be improved. Steven Isicoff described the purpose of the Fund at Joseph's funeral -
Joe was fortunate because he has a family that loves him and that had the resources, or found the resources, to help him try to to help himself with the challenges he faced because of his ADHD. He received counseling, tutoring, advocacy in the public school system, the support of some of the private schools he attended. But so many less fortunate children, children in foster care or in low income families, don't have that. And so the low self esteem that comes with the constant face of failure that the struggles of ADD and ADHD present, have no place to go. These children, instead of being provided what the public schools are legally obligated to provide, get little or nothing. And they are either thrown out of, or drop out of, school, leaving them little outlet for their energies and frustrations, except the streets and the challenges those streets provide. And so Laurel and I are in the process of collecting funds in Joseph's memory to either fund a program in existence, or if it doesn't exist, to create one, that will provide resources for counseling, tutoring and academic intervention, to help children that were less fortunate than Joe, to give them a chance to become productive, successful men and women - just as Joseph was on his way to all good things, a rising star.After almost two years, and after consulting with professionals from many areas impacted by ADD/ADHD, the Fund decided to partner with the University of Miami School of Medicine Center for Treatment Research on Adolescent Drug Abuse ("CTRADA") as part of their Multidimensional Family Therapy Program. Although Joseph never used drugs (other than those prescribed by his doctors), the board felt that CTRADA, which services families of children with drug problems or other problems arising from a multiple of issues associated with maladaption caused by ADD/ADHD as well as other disabilities, was the perfect fit. That partnership resulted in the creation of the Joseph Samuel Isicoff Program for Learning and Advancement. The Joseph Samuel Isicoff Memorial Fund, Inc. Fed. Tax I.D. No. 20-1055878, is exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.