“Legacies” a podcast dedicated to preserving the inspiring stories and wisdom of Utah women. In November 2012, the Board of Directors of the Family Support & Treatment Center officially named the building in honor of Joy A. O’Banion to recognize her unwavering personal commitment and ongoing years of service to the organization. Joy served as the agency’s Executive Director for over 25 years from August 1989 through September 2014. Currently, as Director of Strategy, Joy remains an integral part of decision making and adherence to the agency’s mission.
“Legacies,” a podcast by Utah Women’s Walk
Season 1, Episode 4: Joy O'Banion
If you’d like to do something to help survivors of abuse please consider supporting or attending the FathersDayClassic golf tournament on Friday June 18th at Thanksgiving Point. It’s a great way to celebrate Father’s Day as well as support a worthy cause. You can play in the event, sponsor, volunteer, donate, or give as a gift.
This tournament is raising money & awareness for Prevent Child Abuse Utah, a leading organization dedicated to eradicating child abuse.
For more information go to FathersDayClassic.com
Joy O’Banion
MW: Trauma transforms lives, but it doesn’t have to define them. Today’s guest has seen this truth play out again and again throughout her 30-year career as a social worker treating young survivors of neglect and abuse.
JO: I think that survivors would want people to know that they are more than their trauma. They are more than their abuse. Their abuse is something that happened to them, but it is not who they are.
MW: I am Michele Welch from Utah Women’s Walk, and this is “Legacies,” a podcast dedicated to preserving the inspiring stories and wisdom of Utah women. Joy O’Banion is the director of strategy at Orem’s Family Support & Treatment Center, where she served as the executive director for twenty-five years. She has a master’s in social work and sociology. Adam Welch, who serves on the board of directors for Utah Women’s Walk, spoke with her in 2020
AW: Let’s start at the very beginning. Where you came from, and where you were born, and what was life like growing up for you?
JO: I was born in a small town in northern Wyoming, called Powell, Wyoming. I lived there for the first six years of my life. It was such a great time. My grandparents lived on a farm outside of Powell. I was born in a small town in northern Wyoming, called Powell, Wyoming. I lived there for the first six years of my life. It was such a great time. My grandparents lived on a farm outside of Powell, The place that I grew up was Billings. So I consider myself from Montana. And it’s a little bit hard for me to have Utah plates on my vehicles.
AW: Is there anything that you look back on, maybe certain experiences, that might have steered your life’s work that kind of affected you growing up?
JO: I turned eight in 1968. So that tells you how old I am if you do the math, right? And that year was a really interesting year. First of all, Helen Keller died. And I don’t know if it was my first or second grade class, but our teacher read the story of Helen Keller to us. They announced it on the radio, and my parents were talking about her and how much good she had done in the world, in spite of being deaf, blind, [and] mute. The next thing was that Martin Luther King was assassinated, and that affected me. And then Robert Kennedy was assassinated. And as I compared Helen Keller, and the good that she had done, verses, how is it, I mean my eight year old mind questioning. How is it that we can live in a world where we kill people? And those experiences I think started my social work. How can we hurt each other this way? And then when I was ten, a couple of years down the road, one of my great grandma’s was in a nursing home. And we used to always visit her on Sunday afternoons. I had a blue dress on. I remember it really well. And we were walking down the hall to her room—and I had done this many times—but this particular day, as we were walking by the nurse’s station, there was a woman that was sitting in a chair. They had her arms tied to the chair, and then the chair was tied to the pole by the nurse’s station. And all she could do was circle that pole. But as she did that, people walked by her.
As I have looked back on that as an adult, I have thought, okay, so she was probably a wanderer, so they were probably trying to keep her safe. But why are we doing it in a way that is also degrading to her? And that experience had a very powerful impact on me in terms of, we need to treat people with dignity and respect.
AW: And how did it evolve from there that kind of helped carve your path ultimately into social work and confronting abuse and trauma. Was that the beginning of this career path for you?
JO: I think social work is in my blood, Adam. I think social justice is part of my DNA.I remember as a teenager imagining myself as a therapist. I didn’t know what social work was at the time, but I imagined myself being a therapist. That same dad of mine, at one point, in an effort to protect me, said, “You care too much.” Those are not his exact words, but that is what he was saying. And I listened to that, and so I wasn’t sure if therapy was the right way for me to go. And so I did sociology instead, and I had a mentor that said, “You should go on for your Ph.D.” And I said to him, if I do, it’s going to be in marriage and family therapy. I am going to do therapy if I go on” And then I started working at the Center, and I found out that what I really needed was a master’s in social work. And so after I had been at the Center for about four years as the director, I went part time and did a master’s of social work, so that I could do therapy. And here I am, thirty-one years later at the Center, and it’s been my life work.
AW: What sources of strength do you have? Or how do you keep your bucket full, so to speak, as you invest time and attention into all of these different people that are coming to you in turmoil?
JO: It’s like walking on sacred ground when somebody opens their heart. And to walk that journey with them, it’s so important to remember that they are inviting you into their life, into their heart, into their mind. And that really is sacred work. And so I do believe that having a spiritual connection, is really really important in being able to hear what they are saying. Not to just hear their words but hear their message and hear their heart. And so that is helpful to me to remember that and to do my own work in terms of being prepared for that. I am lucky. I am blessed. I am fortunate to have a group of comrades in arms. I didn’t name us this, and I don’t like the name, but the name is Magnificent Seven. We go by Mag Seven. So what that is, is a group, that as the agency was really taking off therapeutically, there are seven of us who really started that. And we have been able to stay close for over twenty-five years. And those friends, we just “get” each other, and we are important to each other’s lives. And that is very helpful. It’s also helpful to be connected to my family. I don’t have kids of my own, but I am pretty connected to my nieces and nephews and now to their kids. And being around—this is going to sound weird—but being around kids who are not traumatized can be helpful to remember that, oh yeah, not every kid in the world is traumatized.
AW: What do you think is maybe one of the most rewarding concepts or elements of your job? And why is it the most rewarding?
JO: It is so cool to watch people become who they are meant to be. And a lot of people, adults especially, who have been traumatized, have forgotten who they are. And as they rediscover that, it’s such a powerful experience. So that’s really cool. It’s also an amazing thing to watch kids whose parents have hurt them, and maybe their rights have been terminated, and now they have been adopted. I remember one little boy, and I remember—his story to me is one of the epitomes of my job and why we do what we do. This little boy had been through the system long enough that his parent’s rights were terminated. He had two sisters, and when it came time for adoption, the family decided to adopt the girls and not him. And so he was taken out of that home, and so he lost his role as protector of his sisters. He is now told again; we don’t want you. He has lost his parents. He went to another placement and that failed. Back to the original one, bad idea, failed again. When he got to the family that ultimately adopted him, he looked like a concentration camp kid. His stomach was distended. He hoarded food. He was skin and bones. Even though he had been in the system for eighteen months, that is what he looked like. My personal feeling is because, yes got food, but that is all he got. He didn’t get the emotional support that he needed. He happened to be half Native American, and the foster dad, who became his dad, was also half Native American, and he started taking him to pow wow’s and teaching him about his heritage and teaching him to dance. And he came to therapy with me, and at seven months when this couple adopted him, he had grown seven inches. Seven inches in seven months. To me, he is the representation of the studies that they did in orphanages long ago where half of them they fed, and half of them they fed and held them. And those that they just fed, turned their faces to the wall and died. And those that they held, lived. Now, I want him to do more than live. He is an adult now, and he thrives. I want our kids to thrive. And so being a part of that is very very rewarding. And it’s just such a cool experience. I had one of those last night, when I saw a little kid who had been traumatized, and I saw her bright. Her eyes shine. She is happy. She is thriving. And I shared that with Stuart today. He was super excited.
JO: Yeah, one of my Mag Seven friends said that people will say to him, “Why would you want to do this? It is such hard work.” And he says, “Why would you not? Why would I not want to be part of this work, because it is amazing.”
AW: Do you have any advice that you would share with people who may not understand the effects of abuse, or may not totally be familiar with what their role is and what they can do in terms of abuse?
JO: I think one of the most difficult things for those who don’t understand, but also for those who are experiencing it, is that the pain often comes out as anger. So when you see someone who has that level of anger, you know, we have those people in our lives, right? And we wonder why they are so mad all the time, or we wonder why they can’t, whatever—it probably is because there is some pain or some fear that is manifesting as anger. So the advice in terms of that is, see past the anger and care about that person. See who they really are. I also would say, believe them. Believe them. A lot of times when we hear about abuse, especially abuse, not so much like the death of a family member, which is also very traumatic, but especially with abuse, one of the most difficult things about that is that oftentimes the perpetrator is a fine, upstanding, modest, healthy, normal American boy. That’s from Bye Bye Birdie.
So it’s very difficult for people to believe that they could do something so horrendous. People don’t make this up Adam.
AW: Right.
JO: They don’t make it up. Especially kids. What benefit would there be for a kid to make it up? But as a bystander, it’s hard for people to believe that that could happen. I would say, please, please believe them.
AW: What do you think that these survivors that have gone through traumatic events would—how would they want us to react and respond? What would they want us to do, do you think?
JO: We do not want to treat people who have been hurt as weak. They are not weak. Kids who have been abused, you know what, they can still do their homework, and they can still make their bed, and they can still tie their shoes. We want to send a message that you are strong. And so we don’t want to send that message of, we need to do stuff for you because you can’t do it because you were hurt. No, that is not going to help them. But also, I think that survivors would want people to know that they are more than their trauma. They are more than their abuse. Their abuse is something that happened to them, but it is not who they are. Now sometimes because when kids get hurt, they are not able to deal with that at a young age, and they are more vulnerable to be hurt again, and hurt again, and hurt again. And so then by the time they become adults, they have layer after layer of trauma, and they come to believe that that is who they are. That they are the person for hurting, and that is not true. And so sometimes it takes a while for them to be able to come to an understanding that they are more than that. It is what happened to them, but it is not who they are. And that is really really important.
AW: I know we don’t get to pick our trials, right? A lot of times they occur to us. But can you think of anything in your life that occurred, and maybe talk us through a little bit about what it was and also what you were able to do to overcome it?
JO: So as I think about that, Adam, it’s not so much something that happened to me as much as it is something that didn’t happen to me. I am single. I have never been married. And as I think about that, I think that that is probably the greatest trial in my life. To kind of walk through life alone. And it’s not that I haven’t wanted that to happen or anything like that, it just hasn’t. And so especially as I was younger, that was really really difficult. And for the most part, I don’t believe that there are trials or issues that we have that we are going to learn, and it’s never going to happen again. I think that there are some things in all of our lives that we are going to have to deal with over, and over, and over. But I see it as a spiral. And so because I deal with it at whatever level, the next time it comes around, you know, my alone issue, I am dealing with it at a different level, because I already dealt with it at a higher level. And so it goes deeper. I see the spiral going down as opposed to up. And so every once in a while, that comes back around, and I deal with it again. The way I deal with that, as I said earlier, I try to surround myself with people who matter to me. People that I am able to serve, whether that is professionally or personally.
So this is a quote from Richard Bach who wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but he also wrote a book called Illusions. And this is what he said, “The bond that links your true family, is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.”
So, yes, I am close to my family members. We ride motorcycles together. And that time together—I can’t describe what riding does, but it’s just amazing. And so spending that time together, and having that connection that my dad started, is really really powerful. And having kids around me, but also having that Mag Seven group. And having people in my neighborhood, who are older, who kind of took on a grandparent role for me and also a parent role. Having those people around me are really what helped me to overcome that. And I don’t think it’s overcome that. I think it’s deal with it. Because overcome means I’m done, and I don’t think I am.
AW: So you mentioned earlier about Martin Luther King Jr. and Helen Keller, and in the very beginning about your grandparents, but are there any other men or women that you have looked up to as a child growing up, family members, or anybody else? And then the second part of that is, why did you look up to these people? Were there certain qualities that you had admired in them?
JO: So I would say that my maternal grandmother growing up, was my greatest hero. Not because she had a large station in life, but the way I was treated by her. First of all, our birthdays are one day apart. So when I was little, we always celebrated our birthday together. And as I grew up, we celebrated our birthday together. And then as she got older and was not as able to be the adult in that relationship, I always called her on her birthday. We always celebrated together. But she sent me a message when I was very young, that I mattered. That I was important. And that message created in me, what I think we want to create in everyone, and that is that you are important. You matter. And people who get that message—as we talk about trauma—they are able to heal. Those who don’t have that—don’t have somebody in their life who sends that message to them—it’s much much more difficult for them. So I credit her with sending me that message. That I matter.
AW: Do you have any words of wisdom or maxims, or any phrases or something, that kind of drive you throughout your life, or that you try to remember, or anything like that.
JO: I do. First of all, in terms of my job. I believe—we are obviously not there in our society; we have a long way to go—but I believe that everyone has the right to a happy healthy life. And that has created in me a desire to provide that for as many people as I can.
Dignity and respect. You heard me say that earlier. Dignity and respect is really important.
AW: Do you have any advice for women in Utah?
JO: First of all, get an education. Please, please get an education. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a four year degree. It doesn’t have to be a master’s degree, but it’s important for women to be educated. One, because if you find yourself in a situation where you need to support yourself, support your kids, have something that can provide you with that opportunity. More importantly is that knowledge is power. And so, as we educate ourselves, we can gain power. And that is important.
I would also say, take care of yourself. Take care of yourself physically. Take care of yourself emotionally. Take care of yourself spiritually. Take care of yourself socially. Those four quadrants, right? We as women are really good at taking care of other people. We are not always so good at taking care of ourselves. It’s important to take care of ourselves, while we are taking care of other people.
And you know what, you never know when something that you do is going to impact someone. And it can be just a small thing, and you never know what it is going to be. So live your life with integrity. When I think about this—and I learned this from my Grandpa—I watched him move water with a shovel when he was irrigating. He did it to the best of his ability and his fields were green. And I learned that it doesn’t matter how great the task is, right? But by small things, we really do move mountains. We do move people’s lives. And you never know, when you dry a tear or put a blanket around a kid, who—it’s her birthday, and she is throwing up, and there are no presents for her. That is going to matter someday. And the really cool thing is when people come back to you and say, you changed my life. And all of us do, so we need to be aware of who is around us. And when we think, I could help a person just by reaching out, do it, because it will matter to them.
AW: Can you think of anything that you would like to be remembered for?
JO: If there was one word that I would want etched on my tombstone, it would be integrity. I want to be remembered for that.
AW: We are so grateful that you were on the podcast today. And we feel honored to have been able to learn more about you today. Thank you so much for being here, and for being a part of the Utah Women’s Walk.
JO: Thank you so much.
We want to thank Joy O’Banion and Adam Welch for this important and beautiful interview.
If you’d like to do something to help survivors of abuse please consider supporting or attending the FathersDayClassic golf tournament on Friday June 18th at Thanksgiving Point. It’s a great way to celebrate Father’s Day as well as support a worthy cause. You can play in the event, sponsor, volunteer, donate, or give as a gift.
This tournament is raising money & awareness for Prevent Child Abuse Utah, a leading organization dedicated to eradicating child abuse.
For more information go to FathersDayClassic.com
If you’d like to listen to the full interview with Joy O’Banion and other remarkable Utah women, visit utahwomenswalk.org.
Thanks to our writer and producer Tamara Kemsley, our editor Ron Cool, and Catherine McINtyre at the UVU Library George Sutherland Archives.
A special thanks to our supporters Allen and Denise Alexander, Shauna Duke, Roman and Ann Takasaki and Julie Bagley.
Thanks again for listening to today’s episode of “Legacies”