Kyle Hollins
Moving from “Rehabilitation” to “Abilitation”
Kansas City, MO
Written by Micah Chrisman
To address systemic issues in Kansas City, like violence, drug trafficking, and structural poverty, just to name a few, the metaphor often used is that we must go “upstream” to find the root causes rather than just focusing on the surface-level symptoms we see in our communities. Kyle Hollins’ life and experiences set him on a course to address these core problems by reaching out to youth and meeting them where they are at.
Kyle grew up in the 5700 block of Kansas City, MO., which was locally called the “murder factory”. He knew he had to graduate high school to keep his life on course, but with the crack epidemic plaguing his neighborhood like so many others across the country, he found himself selling the drug to make a living.
“I didn’t know it was an epidemic. You heard about people dying but it was just a normal thing. I got caught up in the lifestyle and I spiraled out of control,” said Kyle. “After graduation, I became homeless, and after a while I started catching cases and stacking charges. It compounded and I ended up catching a C felony charge and later conspiracy charges for drug trafficking.”
One pivotal conversation between him and his parole officer first introduced him to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, but his personal growth and healing would continue through over 90 months of incarceration in a federal penitentiary. This was the beginning of his paradigm shift. He went through Life Connections’ cognitive behavioral program in Leavenworth and learned tools to examine his inner wounds and childhood traumas. In addition to taking accountability for his actions, Kyle gained a deeper understanding of the systemic, communal issues that impacted his behavior and created cycles of revictimization.
“The penal system is designed for ‘rehabilitation’, which is about returning people back to who they were before prison, but ‘abilitation’ is about helping people become who they are meant to be,” said Kyle. “The Life Connections program was a rigorous 18-month process that set me on a course to learn anything and everything I could about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.”
Power Moves graduation in 2021 where KC students learned social and emotional skills
1st installment of Power Moves in 2021. Joseph Thomas teaches the students about civic engagement
2nd installment of Power Moves in 2022 where young people acted out a scenario with KC Mothers in Charge for our ripple effect simulation
Not long into his training, Kyle realized the lecture-style approaches weren’t designed for the culture they were serving. After he was hired by the program as an employee, and later a program manager, he redesigned the curriculum to be more audience responsive for incarcerated individuals. As a result, he was able to grow the graduation retention rate to nearly 95% and keep inmates engaged from start-to-finish.
In February of 2019, Kyle was released on parole, obtained his LLC status in August that same year, and received his nonprofit status in 2020. Despite all the hurdles of the COVID 19 pandemic, he and his team launched the Lyrik’s Institution in 2021.
“Our programs are people-centered and focus on building relationships. We’re working in Kansas City Public Schools, the juvenile courts, and we’re moving into the state and city courts as well,” said Kyle. “Policies are being made by these institutions that are removed from community issues and people’s lived experiences. It’s our job to bridge that gap and keep young people out of the legal justice system altogether.”
The Lyrik’s Institution works to reduce crime rates and cycles of re-traumatization by empowering youth voices through the arts. They believe that to counteract destructive thinking errors, young people need safe learning environments that promote their creativity and productive behaviors. As a result, they facilitate professional development and creative art programs for youth to express themselves. Some of the skill-based internships they offer relate to poetry, music, drama, debate, forensics, photography, filmmaking, dance, and many other career-building arenas. Through their work, young people have obtained paid internship positions and have found job placements that have set them on life-fulfilling pathways.
“We believe Life is poetry in motion. We're here to help when you're writing those lyrics.” To learn more, visit lyriksinstitute.com.