By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — Shatter Our Silence was born out of a funeral.
It was the third funeral in three years that Kevin Polky had attended for a young adult who died by suicide. All three were classmates of his son, Kalab, a 2014 Rockford Christian graduate.
Polky said he watched the pain on his son’s face and the devastation of his classmates, and he decided more needed to be done to help young adults have real conversations about depression and suicide.
He’s done just that, connecting with thousands of young adults to prepare them to “be a light in someone’s darkness.”
“We have, approximately, between 18,000 and 20,000 high-schoolers and young adults that we’ve presented to, and probably another 5,000 to 6,000 middle-schoolers,” Polky said of the nonprofit’s work.
Listen: Kevin Polky offers mental health tips to help you be the best version of yourself
Shatter Our Silence was formed in spring 2016, first as a one-time awareness event and now as a nonprofit that works in schools, the military and other settings to help young adults recognize risk factors that lead to suicide.
The nonprofit was a natural extension of Polky’s work as a licensed clinical social worker, certified alcohol and drug counselor and certified school social worker. He founded KP Counseling in 2001 after about a decade of work in the field.
KP Counseling works in seven school districts and employs about 35 therapists along with additional support staff. Polky also hosts a weekly podcast, “The Journey,”where guests talk about overcoming hardship.
Polky said he’s seen the stigma surrounding talking about mental health fade since he started in the field in early 1990s.
“I don’t know if there actually is more people struggling today than 30 years ago, I just know that there’s more people willing to talk about it and more people willing to seek assistance,” he said. “Before there was so much silence around it, so much shame, so much stigma that you stuffed it, you suppressed it.”
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About one in five U.S. adults experienced mental illness in 2020, a total of roughly 52.9 million people, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Still, fewer than half received treatment.
About 16.5% of youth ages 6-17 experienced a mental health disorder in 2016, according to NAMI. Polky sees the willingness for people to address mental health issues.
“We don’t have people now being scared that we’re going to come into their school and talk about it,” Polky said. “We’re being asked to come in the school and talk about it.”
The five main risk factors young-adult suicide, Polky said, are surviving sexual assault, bullying, body image disorders, mental illness and substance abuse before the age of 18.
“If there hasn’t been some intervention, they carry that on into their young adult and adult years,” Polky said. “We’ve had individuals who have died by suicide in the military, then when we go back and look they may have also had issues with bullying that they never addressed early on.”
Polky uses the acronym ACE as a guide for how people should respond when they recognize someone is struggling with their mental health. It stands for Ask, Caring, Escort – with the later meaning you lead someone to professional help or other support.
“You don’t have to say you understand, you just say that you’re willing to listen,” Polky said.
Polky’s practice, however, isn’t focused solely on helping people dealing with mental health issues. Instead, he stresses that people should work on their mental health as an aspect of their overall wellness. Mental health, just like physical health, should be worked on regularly to create the best version of yourself.
“If 25% of individuals identify with having some type of psychiatric illness, some time of mental illness, what’s going on with the other 75% of our population and how can we effect and impact them so they don’t become part of that 25%?” Polky said. “That’s was also what KP is trying to do.”
Mental Health Awareness Month
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, which has been observed in the United States since 1949. Throughout the month, the Rock River Current will publish several stories looking at use of the mental health sales tax in Winnebago County and other local initiatives centered around mental health.
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on Twitter at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas.