By Nick Poust
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and to do its part the Youth and Family Health Network of Boone County on May 3 held “Mental Health Matters” at the Whitestown Municipal Complex. As part of the event, a panel that included Boone County Sheriff Mike Nielsen spoke about mental health issues that affect so many in the community.
The keynote speaker was Darren Evans, a former Indianapolis Colts running back and current employee of the state of Indiana’s Dept. of Workforce Development’s HIRE Program. Evans spoke about his hardships growing up, facing adversity and fighting through injuries to reach the NFL, only to suffer another that turned out to be career-ending on his first play.
“I didn’t have football. I lost my identity. I didn’t know who I was, but my family, my mental fortitude helped me with that,” Evans said. “I had people that I knew loved me and challenged me to share my love with them, and then eventually (I was) able to share my love with other people.”
After Evans spoke about overcoming his mental health issues, Nielsen discussed a need for better mental health care throughout Boone County. His desire for improvement was heightened by witnessing his daughter, Lebanon police officer Taylor Nielsen, suffer from PTSD triggered by the death of a Zionsville mother and son who were murdered in February 2016. Taylor Nielsen shared her story during the event.
“The only reason that I can stand up here tonight and talk to you about this is the courage that this young lady has given me,” Mike Nielsen said with his daughter sitting next to him. “We have to do everything we can to stop the stigma that comes along with mental health issues. I can tell you that over the past 20 years we have not done a good job of taking care of mental health issues that are there.”
Nielsen said that 82 percent of the 220 inmates in his jail on a daily basis deal with some type of mental illness.
“It’s not until recently that we’ve been able to bring mental health professionals in,” Nielsen said. “Now we have almost 48 hours of the week of mental health care on our staff inside the jail to try to help these folks deal with the mental health issues they have.”
