Midvale Mayor JoAnn Seghini named Child Advocate of the Year

Intermountain Catholic

+ Enlarge

Midvale Mayor JoAnn Seghini (right), a member of St. Therese of the Child Jesus Parish, receives a 2006 Child Advocate of the Year Award from Voices for Utah Children Executive Director Karen Crompton Sept. 6 at Little America Hotel.IC photo by Barbara S. Lee

SALT LAKE CITY —When Midvale Mayor JoAnn Seghini, a member of St. Therese of the Child Jesus Parish, was honored Sept. 6 by Voices for Utah Children with one of two Child Advocate of the Year awards, she asked members of her staff and representatives of the many programs she has implemented in Midvale to stand with her to accept the accolades.

"I don’t do all this work. These are the people who do the work," she said. "I’m just the cheerleader."

Jane Wolf of Voices for Utah Children, in her introduction of Seghini, traced the career of a woman who has been an activist not only for children, but for all people, especially society’s underserved for more than 30 years.

Seghini’s career of service to others began in the classroom. As a teacher in the Jordan School District, Wolf said, Seghini took interest in each student and each family. She eventually moved into school administration, becoming the district’s superintendent of curriculum.

"Concurrent with her final 12 years of work in the schools, she also served as a member of Midvale’s City Council. She retired from the Jordan District when she was elected Mayor of Midvale in 1998.

"Now in her third term as mayor, JoAnn continues to demonstrate the ways in which government leaders can positively effect the lives of children and their families," Wolf said.

Among Seghini’s mayoral accomplishments has been the development of the Community-Building-Community Initiative (CBCI), a local extension of the state-wide FACT program.

Wolf said this unique effort "marshaled all of the community’s assets, human and financial. Paid and volunteer, public and private, to improve outcomes across all critical measures of the city’s ‘health’ and all age groups from the womb to the tomb."

If those last few words have a decidedly Catholic ring to them, it’s because Seghini said her Catholic faith forms everything she does.

"My faith is part of who I am and what I am," Seghini said in a Sept. 8 interview with the Intermountain Catholic. "My Catholic faith reinforces what I do and what I ask others to do; feed the hungry and clothe the poor. I would like to think that I put into action what our faith teaches. My faith is fully defined in the Catholic Church. It grounds me and it affirms me."

One critical CBCI project Seghini spearheads in Midvale is the Neighbor-to-Neighbor program. It involves training several of Midvale’s Latino women to provide health and human services outreach to other Spanish-speaking residents of the city. "This program (Communidades Unitas) has since been expanded to other parts of Salt Lake County," Wolf added.

Midvale has always had the same problems facing other suburban communities in Salt Lake County, Wolf said. Many residents lacked easy access to vital programs and services located in Salt Lake City’s downtown area or around the University of Utah. "JoAnn made it her mission to court those which she knew her people needed. Through sustained effort she attracted a Boys and Girls Club, a health clinic for low-income residents, and a peer court for teens. She also garnered Midvale’s support for establishment of the Road Home’s winter overflow shelter for homeless families and single people."

Success breeds success, and Seghini’s CBCI fostered such projects as a supportive housing community for low-income women, often highly transient. The housing community helps women establish themselves in the community and their children set down roots both socially and academically. "Working with educators and other CBCI leaders, the Family Support Center developed the LifeStart Village to address the needs of families and their children," Wolf said. "The project recognized the critical needs of children and women attempting to support their children with inadequate job or life skills."

As a result of that project, Midvale now has a four-acre site in the heart of the city where they provide homes for 47 women and their children. "At the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the village, Seghini welcomed the women and children as ‘Midvale’s newest residents.’" Wolf said. "That gesture has always seemed to me to epitomize her approach to civic leadership."

Seghini’s philosophy of leadership through service was learned at home, the mayor said. Her father, Ben Bagley served as a city attorney, and her mother, Marie, was very active in the Midvale community that Seghini has always called home.

"People knew me," she said. "I also knew them, and we’ve always had many friends. You can’t be a good advocate without a network, and my network has always been my friends, the people of Midvale, whom I love."

Safe and secure families have always been one of Seghini’s primary concerns. Through her advocacy Midvale now has a 24-hour crisis nursery where parents under stress can take their children. It provides a safe environment for the children and respite for parents. In the Family Support Center and the LifeStart Village, 24-hour case management is available, as are classes in budgeting, job hunting, and preparing children for school.

"We work closely with Valley Mental Health in many of our programs," Seghini said. "For example, for every woman overcoming an addiction there is a child, often a bigger family. When Mom has to be the head of the household, she need help, and our community has resources for fragile families."

Seghini has always encouraged independence and self-help in city programs, so when Midvale’s Parents Anonymous group lost their funding, they held a press conference to let the larger community know they were in need. "I was never so proud in my life," Seghini said. "They took the bull by the horns. It was good to see."

Seghini’s vision of a fully involved community that cares for and about each other has brought programs to Midvale on anger management and conflict resolution in both English and Spanish. To all of these efforts she has found the Midvale community open and willing.

"A community will be open if they understand that by accessing these services and programs they won’t be diminished in any way," she said. "They need to know that their values and principles will be respected."

Inviting the Road Home Overflow Shelter into Midvale could have created problems for the community, but Seghini’s positive attitude and the rules she set down made the transition relatively smooth.

"Our rules are that we take no walk-ins, we don’t handle inebriates or severe mental health problems, and the men we serve are bused in at night an out in the morning."

Seghini talked to the people of Midvale honestly.

"We’re talking about our people," she said. "We’re talking about your nieces, nephews, and children who happen to be homeless."

The overflow shelter began building a data base and the people of Midvale began relating to the shelter’s clients.

"Now, everyone in Midvale is involved in the overflow shelter," she said. "Even our children are involved. They donate war socks through the elementary school. It’s all very humbling."

With a mayor whose priorities are a healthy community, healthy families, healthy children, and healthy neighborhoods, it’s a wonder people aren’t breaking down the doors to move to Midvale. The city’s population of 29,000 has finite room to grow, however. In Seghini’s time in office, the city’s infant mortality rate has dropped, the crime rate has dropped, the city has made a getting a handle on the diabetes epidemic a priority, and children are reading more than they ever have.

"If we can run cities where children read, where they and their dogs are safe and healthy, it would be a wonderful world, indeed," Seghini said.