onica Kramer cConkey

hours upon hours sitting in the barn of her family’s multi-generational farm in northwest Minnesota tending to sick, injured or dying animals. Her tender heart ached for those hurting animals, and she recalls wanting to do whatever she could to help them. Little did she know that those hours of sitting in the barn were shaping her heart and mind with compassion and patience, equipping her for a lifetime of purpose. That compassionate heart is now put to use daily as McConkey serves our region as the director of business development at Prairie St. John’s, where she gets to educate and promote services for those who often feel alone, hurting and misunderstood. A key leader in our community’s vital and ongoing conversation regarding addiction and mental health, McConkey’s goal is to minimize the stigma surrounding mental health, freeing people to discuss their emotional and mental struggles as readily as their physical ones. Looking back, she’s grateful for the journey that has led her to where she is today.

After high school, McConkey pursued a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s in counseling in Florida and Virginia, respectively. With diplomas freshly in hand, McConkey dove headfirst into a career serving teens living on the edge in the juvenile justice program in New Port Richey, Florida. Her heart broke daily as she saw kids living with the pain of drugs, alcohol, violence and suicide. Since those early days of her career, McConkey has looked for cracks in each community she’s served, seeking out protective factors that could be structured so as to foster life and health. Each time she sees a life in crisis or reads a suicide headline she asks, “What could we have done here? What can we do moving forward?”

Moving back to Minnesota a couple of years later, McConkey spent a decade in the Mahnomen School District as a school-based mental health practitioner through Stellher Human Services.

There she learned the tremendous value of relationships and the absolute necessity of establishing trust before being able to help someone in crisis or addiction. “People will never open up until they trust you,” McConkey explains. As she moved into leadership and development positions with Stellher, McConkey had the opportunity to work closely with the Minnesota Department of Human Services in expanding school-based mental health positions, early childhood mental health programming, and mobile mental health crisis teams.

In her 17 years of serving the communities and counties of North Central Minnesota, McConkey found herself continually amazed at the resilience of families and individuals. It was her great joy to walk alongside young people, help them navigate tragic and traumatic childhood situations, and then watch as they grew into thriving adults. “It’s so awesome to feel like

I have a small part in helping anyone take the next step,” says McConkey. “Little things can have such a big impact; just little things that you can insert into people’s lives can help steer them for that next step.” During this chapter in her life, McConkey was struggling through her own personal crisis as she waded through an emotionally painful divorce. Experiencing firsthand the devastation that often comes with divorce, McConkey was able to build bridges with those who were hurting, encouraging them to let the past go, take control of their thoughts and feelings, and keep moving forward. “I am very intentional about my thought process,” McConkey says. “We can control how we feel by how we think. So if I’m feeling upset, I pause and peel that feeling apart layer by layer until I figure out what is bothering me. I spend no time thinking about the past. You can learn from it, but you can’t change it. Replaying it in your mind won’t change it.”

Always eager to move through a newly opened door, McConkey came into her current position at Prairie St. John’s with excitement to grow mental health education and addiction prevention efforts. She and her team work hard to minimize the stigma around mental health so that the potential of each person can be maximized. “There is value and beauty in each person, and there’s a whole lot in each life that led them to where they are,” she says. “I just want everyone to know that it’s okay to reach out for help and to not see it as a sign of weakness.” One way Prairie reaches into the community is by offering free monthly continuing education unit events, open to any and all professionals, in which Prairie’s staff of experts, as well as other local mental health professionals, address a large scope of topics. McConkey loves the privilege of educating people throughout the region about the realities of the current mental health epidemic and the unique challenges that our fast-paced culture adds to the conversation. In the past, mental health battles were most often unseen and fought silently. Now, although the battles are still hidden far too often, the climate of the times has certainly caused a crisis.

While it’s tough to identify exactly the cause, many environmental and cultural elements have worked together to cause this upswing: the speed of life causing toxic levels of anxiety; the weight of stress prompting unhealthy coping mechanisms; the rarity of intimate friendships and family relationships, often resulting in a diminished sense of purpose and then depression; the loss of a sense of rhythm to daily life; a lack of whole foods and exercise; and the new pressures of social media and the digital age. “With the pressure of social media, we all want to appear perfect,” says McConkey. “But that isn’t an accurate reflection of the realities of life. We all have something going on that we need to deal with. Instead we’d often rather pretend it’s not there and go on appearing perfect.” The weight of that façade, mixed with the anxiety of being able to see everyone else’s best moments and feeling unable to measure up, causes a unique depression and interpersonal comparison that prior generations didn’t have. An added factor for our children is that kids’ brains are seeing and trying to process adult content at a more intense level and higher frequency than in the past. In their still-developing brains, the overload of adult content leads to chaotic perceptions, causing stress and anxiety.

To address this growing mental health epidemic, Prairie offers three primary levels of care: the outpatient clinic and day programs, the inpatient hospital, and the 30-day residential facility. Not wanting hurting individuals to have to wait for months before getting help, the professional staff at Prairie triages each person that walks through the door, assessing the appropriate level of care. While a common misperception is that Prairie’s services are for those with more severe diagnoses, Prairie’s outpatient clinic provides professional behavioral health counseling to anybody seeking any level of psychiatric help. The 110-bed hospital (soon to be 128 beds after construction of the new hospital), offers a temporary home, counseling and medical expertise, giving individuals time and space to stabilize, adjust medications, and heal in body, mind and spirit. One of the most surprising realities at the hospital is the number of young children admitted. Seeing 8-10 year old patients is very common, and tragically, some of those children have suffered to the point of giving up all hope of a future. Determined for change, McConkey works with community leaders to proactively place protective factors around all children.

The 30–day residential facility has 48 beds and offers extended care for those who are working to overcome substance use disorders. “When I see people struggling to heal from a substance use disorder, I’m amazed at their strength,” says McConkey. “Imagine going two or three days without food. What would you do for food after two or three days without it? It’s the same for someone struggling with addiction. His brain is now telling his body that it needs the drug, the same as our bodies need food. Imagine the strength to overcome that.” The person in recovery not only has to heal physically, but also often needs to change his or her peer group, try to find employment, struggle through difficult (or even triggering) family dynamics, entirely change his or her thought process, and often still wade through the issues that drove the addiction in the beginning. Their stay in the residential facility provides a place of comfort, support and stability during a time when everything else in life has to shift.

McConkey integrates her passion for healing and addiction expertise in a variety of community efforts. She is a member of the steering committee for the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Addiction, which is a coalition of local mayors, community leaders and professionals dedicated to taking a holistic approach in understanding addiction in an effort to end the driving need for substance abuse, fight the opiate epidemic, and bring healing to individuals and families. McConkey is also on the Re-Think Mental Health Initiative Planning Committee, which serves the Fargo-Moorhead area by reframing and adjusting the response to the mental health crisis in a concerted effort to be a less reactive and more proactive community. In addition to focusing on education, prevention and counseling, the initiative is also working to create a culture that supports recovery. Additionally, McConkey serves on the board of the Ronald McDonald House of the Red River Valley, which is an integral partner to Prairie, offering a temporary home to out-oftown families whose children are being treated at Prairie.

There is value and beauty in each person, and there’s a whole lot in each life that led them to where they are.

I just want everyone to know that it’s okay to reach out for help and to not see it as a sign of weakness.

Known as an expert in the field, McConkey was approached a few years ago and asked if she could speak to the unique struggles of farm stress, depression and suicide. As door after door opens in this new, unexpected venture, McConkey has realized that this is a tremendous passion of hers, allowing her to combine her expertise in mental health with her life-long love of the farming community. Eyes on the Horizon Consulting is titled after her childhood years on the farm, looking to the horizon to see what new storm was brewing. So it is with mental health — we need to keep our eyes on the horizon, see what’s coming, and move forward. Traveling the country to speak at various agriculture conventions, as well as partnering with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture to host a “TransFARMation” podcast, she is able to offer hope and healing to struggling farmers and their families through education and awareness.

McConkey yearns for the day when those who are hurting would experience the tangible love of God through the hands, hugs and listening ears of others. “We have to get comfortable with meeting people where they are at,” she says. “That’s what Jesus did. As it is, we turn a blind eye to this reality and then act shocked when we see the headlines.”

Recalling her favorite verse since childhood, McConkey prays that each person would be able to confidently say, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39. No addiction, no diagnoses, no mistake from the past, no reputation, no stigma, nothing.

As the saying goes, it takes a village; that’s certainly true here. We are in a crisis of epidemic proportions, with people suffering silently all around us. The task before us, with McConkey leading the way, is to erase the stigma of mental health. It’s impacting my family, and I bet it’s impacting your family too. In the words of the R.E.M. song from the ‘90s, “Everybody hurts sometimes.” We’re all in this together, and underneath the addictions or pain or diagnoses, the potential inside every human soul is so incredibly vast. The stakes are great.

What do you say? Can we minimize the stigma so as to maximize the potential?

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