Everyday Heroes: AFT Public Employee finalists

Voting is open
May 9 - 29, 2016

Laurie Anton
Family Relations Counselor
Judicial Professional Employees Union (Connecticut)

By the time most kids are 7 years old, they can tell you exactly what is fair. Yet, in the judicial system, parents sometimes are torn up with conflict over how to communicate and resolve their differences without extensively involving the courts. That's where Laurie Anton comes in. The world may not be fair, but she is.

The family relations counselor for the courts and member of the Judicial Professional Employees Union, an affiliate of AFT Connecticut, helps defuse conflicts between parents and shore up their communications skills. "The hope is that once they learn these skills," her nominator says, "it will keep them from having to come to court, as they may be better equipped to resolve many of their issues outside of court." Diligent and patient, Anton continually learns new skills to demonstrate for her clients, so they can take these tools home and use them in everyday life.

Anton has "the calm demeanor and patience of a saint to tackle this level of conflict on a daily basis," her nominator writes. "She is able to present to these people as fair-minded, which is difficult, because high-conflict couples love to declare whose side you're on. The couples working with her have found her to be very fair-minded and learned how to better communicate with the other parent."

That's not all. Anton has a salutary effect on those working around her. "I have also relied on her for advice as a co-worker and friend," the nominator says. "I have referred to her at times as 'the moral compass.' She is without a doubt an Everyday Hero."

Pat Kelly
Head reference librarian, Lynnfield (Mass.) Public Library
Massachusetts Library Staff Association

Librarian Pat Kelly is the kind of co-worker and neighbor you dream of having. "Pat works hard every day to do as much as she can for as many people as she can," writes her nominator. This head of the reference section for the Lynnfield Public Library strikes her colleagues as "excellent," going far beyond what reference librarians normally do to help patrons.

For instance, she makes it her job to learn schoolchildren's names at the start of the year and befriends them so they won't feel "monitored." And she stays with patrons working on their résumés as long as they need her. When running searches, she works methodically, including checking state and nationwide databases, and keeps good records of all the items that are borrowed. "I've worked in other libraries," says her nominator, "and I've never known anyone who's willing to go as far to obtain patron requests."

As a diehard union supporter, Kelly is always there to help anyone with an issue, and she fights to maintain members' benefits through their contract with the town every three years. Once, a retired member needed to go back to work because of financial troubles. When the employer said she couldn't because she'd retired, Kelly teamed up with a union lawyer, went to town meetings to fight for the member's right to return to work, and won. Kelly also volunteers with the North Shore Labor Council. Here, her nominator says, you'll find her "working hard to represent union workers on a broader platform than she already does as our chapter chair."

Kelly keeps her colleagues going with jokes, limericks and poems she creates on the spot to suit the situation. Beyond her job and her union work, she is "a warm-hearted good friend, helping her co-workers and townspeople whenever they need support, a strong arm or a helping hand."

Stephanie McLean-Beathley
Licensed master social worker
Public Employees Federation, New York

It's hard to excel at more than one thing. The expertise of Stephanie McLean-Beathley lies in bringing back to health children who have been raped, abused, neglected, prostituted or otherwise trafficked. These children, whose traumas have plunged them into mental illness, desperately need a safe place and people like McLean-Beathley, a master social worker.

Yet, she has had to divide her attention. Together with the parents of her patients, and despite the difficulty of her job, this council leader in New York's Public Employees Federation has had to defend her patients' safe haven, the award-winning Western New York Children's Psychiatric Center, from being closed. Grassroots efforts intensified last summer when the state began discussing blueprints for merging the children's psychiatric center into an adult facility. McLean-Beathley says consolidating services will dilute care for children and teenagers. Fifty years ago, she points out, adults and children were treated at the same facility. It didn't work then and it won't work now.

So in addition to her important and taxing work, McLean-Beathley conducted a sit-in last fall at a public park in West Seneca. Over two cold and rainy days, she ate only when visitors brought food, distributed dozens of lawn signs and posters, and reflected on the plight of kids who never got visits from Santa and never had their own box of crayons or even a shower. "If you have something worth fighting for, then fight for it," she says. This is why her fellow unionists at PEF nominated Stephanie McLean-Beathley as their Everyday Hero.

Tricia Sweet
Offender rehabilitation counselor, Elmira (N.Y.) Correctional Facility
New York State Public Employees Federation

Sometimes, just showing you care is half the battle. That's how it's been for Tricia Sweet, an offender rehabilitation counselor and director of the Youth Assistance Program at the Elmira Correctional Facility. A member of the Public Employees Federation in the southwestern part of the state, Sweet makes a difference every day in the lives of troubled young people brought to prison so they can see where they might end up if they don't change their ways.

It's a program the counselor volunteered to do when she came to the maximum security prison five years ago—no extra pay or overtime involved. In the daylong, scared straight-style program conducted about twice a month, up to 21 young people, plus chaperones and prison officers, tour the facility and hear the stories of five inmates Sweet has trained to conduct the program. These inmates "scare them a little, break them down and build them back up," trying to show the kids that just because they've grown up with abuse or neglect doesn't mean they have to fail.

"We let them cry," Sweet says. "Some of them are everyday people who went the wrong way, you know?" After the young visitors have shed their tough demeanor, the inmates offer them tools for communicating without yelling, screaming or fighting. Some offer spiritual guidance, Sweet says — "things they can use in life to keep them on the right path.".

Perhaps even more important, Sweet tries to reach out to the community, engaging family members, friends and neighbors to help. "Sometimes it's real tough work that no one understands," she says. Her program has saved the lives of many children and even their families, reports her nominator: "She is a hero to those children, their families and the community."

Valentina Washington
Health Department Accountant II
Baltimore County (Md.) Federation of Public Employees

You might describe Valentina Washington, an accountant for the Baltimore County Health Department, as a go-getter for the people of Baltimore. You surely would describe her as a professional. A star worker and colleague during more than a decade in county government, Washington is above all a problem-solver. Her enthusiasm and powers of analysis help her on the job, her nominator writes, and her personable nature allows her to help co-workers. She understands the challenges public employees face, which led her to become a union steward and then a leader for the Baltimore County Federation of Public Employees, where she is serving as an area vice president.

The sheer scope of her community involvement is amazing. As a mother of four, she volunteers at Hebbville Elementary School and serves as treasurer of its PTA. Also a parent volunteer and member of the Cromwell Valley Elementary Regional Magnet School PTA, she is a staunch advocate for equity among all the county's public school students. She has provided testimony at many a school board meeting.

In her neighborhood, Washington stays active in her civic association, once serving two terms as an officer. She diligently attends meetings held by local elected officials "in an effort to enlighten them," her nominator says. During the summer, she volunteers as a Little League parent coach. Washington's husband works as a county correctional officer and is a union member as well. Somehow they manage to balance their commitments in work and life. To top it off, Valentina Washington is enrolled at the University of Maryland University College, where she is working toward a master's degree in accounting and information systems.