Grant Wilkie, at the Harrisburg Capitol Building Rotunda, speaks in support of legislation he helped to write that would require mental health awareness training for school athletic staff. Wilkie's niece, Kassidy Wilkie, died by suicide on March 24.
Ashley Stahlnecker / LNP | LancasterOnline
Ashley Stahlnecker / LNP | LancasterOnline
Grant Wilkie, at the Harrisburg Capitol Building Rotunda, speaks in support of legislation he helped to write that would require mental health awareness training for school athletic staff. Wilkie's niece, Kassidy Wilkie, died by suicide on March 24.
Kassidy Wilkie was a student athlete involved in a range of sports, from soccer and gymnastics to softball.
In the months leading up to her March 24 suicide, Kassidy’s grades had been slipping, which resulted in a brief suspension from the Donegal High School softball team.
But according to her uncle, Grant Wilkie, Kassidy seemed to be her normal happy self, even hours before her death.
“No one really knew she was struggling with anything other than the normal teenage stuff,” Wilkie said. “But if there are certain signs to look for and if coaches were more aware of this, then they may have seen something and could have referred her” to mental health services.
Grant Wilkie and Kassidy’s 16-year-old cousin, Nia Forrey, shared some of Kassidy’s story at the Pennsylvania Capitol earlier this month as legislators, athletes and coaches gathered for a news conference in support of a proposed bill to require mental health awareness training for school athletic staff.
The bill’s primary sponsor, state Rep. Mary Jo Daley, a Montgomery County Democrat, said her goal is to require schools to issue biannual notification of mental health services available within the school or community to athletic staff, extracurricular advisers, students and parents or guardians.
The proposed bill also would require a school’s assistance program be notified if a student’s participation in a school-sponsored athletic or extracurricular activity is interrupted — due to failing grades or injury, for example — so mental health services can be made available to the student; and require the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association to revise its current educational courses for coaches to include student mental health awareness.
Ryan Kline, a senior research analyst who works on Daley’s legislative priorities, said via email Tuesday that Daley is awaiting feedback on the legislation from interested parties before introducing it in the summer.
Last year, a similar bill introduced by Daley passed in the state House of Representatives but didn’t make it past a referral to the Senate Education Committee. The bill was written by her former intern, Mekkai Williams, who is studying political science at Millersville University and this year is running as a Democrat for a seat on Hempfield School District’s board of directors.
During his junior year at Hempfield High School, Williams suffered a knee injury during football practice. Two knee surgeries and over two years of “intense, exhausting” rehabilitation while sitting on the sidelines followed the injury, Williams said.
“Every day became a routine of pretending to smile while carrying the weight, no one could see,” Williams said. “It wasn’t just physical pain. It was an isolation, loss of identity, a sudden change in routine in the field that I couldn’t talk about and I had to just tough it out.”
Williams isn’t alone in silently battling mental health challenges. The legislation he helped to craft is intended to prevent those challenges from developing into tragedies like the one Kassidy’s family is experiencing.
On March 24, Grant Wilkie awoke to a frantic knocking at his door and the ringing of his doorbell. He saw a message on his phone from his mother, Kassidy’s guardian, notifying him of her death.
“To this day, it’s so hard to believe that a 14-year-old little girl, who was dealing with some sort of internal struggle — which we all know is a temporary pain — felt the only way to cure that pain was to leave this world,” Wilkie said May 14.
Kassidy would tell him of her dreams of becoming an architect and the one thing she really wanted — to one day build a little house on a piece of land she could call her own.
“Nobody knew,” Wilkie said of his niece’s mental health crisis. “Nobody could see it. And for some reason, she didn’t think there was somebody, even the family and friends that loved her terribly, that she could talk to.”
A 2023 report by Kooth, a web-based mental health service provider for school-age children, found that nearly two-thirds of students in Pennsylvania reported needing professional mental health support. The report, based on a survey of 5,586 students, found that 63% of students reported not being comfortable speaking to a friend or family member about their mental well-being.
Students regularly interact with multiple teachers in a day, and every teacher is required by state law to receive training in behavioral health awareness and trauma-informed practices such as suicide prevention training.
But coaches interact with students on a different level that warrants additional training, said state Rep. Mike Schlossberg, D-Lehigh. At the Capitol news conference, Schlossberg spoke of his own mental health challenges — including suffering from major depressive and generalized anxiety disorders — and offered support for the upcoming bill during the conference.
“I’ve always felt like athletic coaches strike that line between being friends and being a trusted adult,” Schlossberg said. “If you can require those trusted adults and friends to get the training that they need, they can see students in a way that teachers don’t. They see students in a way that family and friends and parents don’t.”
A 2022 national study by Learning in Fitness and Education found that only 18% of more than 10,000 youth coaches surveyed said they feel highly confident in their ability to link athletes to mental health resources, and 67% said they want more training on the issue.
Ohio State University LiFEsports is a nationally recognized model and initiative for sport-based positive youth development. Daley cited the survey during her remarks at the Capitol.
“That’s what this legislation is about: giving our schools and coaches the tools they’re asking for now,” Daley said.
Kevin Lawrence, a social studies teacher at Susquehannock High School and head baseball coach in the Red Lion School District in York County, said he’d been told before the news conference that some legislators believe the proposed bill, if enacted, would only add another burden for coaches.
Lawrence, referencing security checkpoints required to enter the Harrisburg Capitol building, said an increased burden on coaches isn’t a valid argument against the proposed bill.
If critics in the Legislature claim “you can’t support the legislation because it puts a burden on somebody else – shame on you,” Lawrence said. “You didn’t have any trouble forcing all of us to come through security so that you can stay safe, but you’re unwilling to put another burden on people to keep our young people safe.”
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Steelton-Highspire School District in Dauphin County has already implemented training for its athletics staff, and all coaches are taught to report signs that a student might be facing mental health challenges, district Athletic Director Andrew Eby told attendees of the Capitol news conference.
“Having that line of communication, a person to talk to, to recognize and observe different behaviors, gives us a plan,” Eby said. “If there’s a concern, it gets reported back to a head coach. … We reach out to the resources that we have in our building … any extra therapy a student may need, we’re already on the ball.”
“I can tell you with great confidence, it has been an extreme success, and it gives our student athletes an understanding that we care,” Eby said.
Mental health training that Eby describes and that the bill would require at all of Pennsylvania’s 500 public schools could save lives in the face of a growing mental health crisis, Wilkie said.
“This bill isn’t just another bill but it’s a doorway for those who need it, a doorway for those that are struggling and feel like they have nowhere else to turn to find somebody that they can just open up to and share the darkness that they feel is filling them,” Wilkie said.
The bill also could further reduce harmful stigma surrounding mental health that remains a barrier to those seeking help, Kassidy’s cousin Nia said.
“Open and honest conversations about mental health are helpful to breaking a harmful stigma” Nia said. “A simple ‘How are you really feeling?’ can help save someone’s life.”
A collection of interviews, photos, and music videos, featuring local musicians who have stopped by the WITF performance studio to share a little discussion and sound. Produced by WITF’s Joe Ulrich.
