Janet Serial

performing home studies for placement of children in the custody of out-of-state child welfare agencies with relativesresiding in Washoe County (AKA, Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children or ICPC), foster home licensing (3 yrs.); as a state adoption worker (3 yrs.); and, providing case management and care coordination services to high-risk pregnant women on Medicaid through a program called MOMS, an acronym for Maternal Obstetrical Management Services (6 yrs.). With an intense desire to influence public policy and to create policy change, she spent the last fifteen years of her career in state service working in Administration in Carson City providing statewide policy development and program management and oversight, first as a Social Welfare Program Specialist in the Division of Health Care Financing and Policy (DHCFP). In 2005, she accepted a position as a Health Program Specialist in what was then the Health Division’s Bureau of Child and Family Services (now the Division of Public and Behavioral Health, Bureau of Child & Family Wellness, where she spent the last 11 years of her career, serving as a Grant Analyst and then as the Program Manager for the Nevada Office of Minority Health, finishing out the last 3 years of her career providing policy and program oversight through the State WIC Office to WIC Clinics throughout the state in Carson City, Las Vegas, Washoe County, as well as in rural WIC clinics in Dayton, Minden, Battle Mountain, Elko, Hawthorne, Tonopah, and Winnemucca.

A long-time civil rights and social justice activist, community organizer, and health advocate, Janet currently serves as the Health Committee Chair on the Executive Committee of the NAACP Reno-Sparks Branch. She also represents the branch on numerous boards, coalitions, committees, etc. Some of those that she presently serves on includes, Nevada Minority Health and Equity Coalition’s Public Policy Committee, the Nevada Tobacco Prevention Coalition, and the Nevada Breast Cancer Collaborative (formerly known as the Northern Nevada Breast Cancer Collaborative), just to name a few. Janet was recruited and appointed to serve as the interim Chair of the Black Caucus of the Democratic Party of Washoe County (BCDPWC) on January 19, 2019. She was then elected to a two-year term as the caucus Chair in March of 2019, serving in that position until June 11, 2021. She then served in an advisory capacity as a member of the Advisory Executive Subcommittee and was elected in 2023 to serve as member-at-large on the executive board of the BCDPWC. In February of 2021, she was also elected to serve on the Executive Board of the newly created statewide Nevada Democratic Black Caucus (NDBC) as the Vice Chair for Washoe County, resigning from that position in June of 2022. 

Janet is the proud mother of four adult daughters and a twenty-four year old granddaughter, all of who are native northern Nevadans born in Washoe County, and, like her, were raised in the Reno-Sparks area. A self-proclaimed Parent Advocate for people with intellectual disabilities, she had to learn to navigate the healthcare and education systems in order to identify culturally appropriate and responsive services and resources for her own daughter, now 39 year old, who is a person with an intellectual disability, cerebral palsy, and a mental health diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Janet’s Motto: “Nothing changes, if nothing changes.”

Awards & Recognitions
• Nevada Women’s Lobby Dolores Feemster Legacy Award, March 30, 2022
• 2021 Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. Citizen of the Year Award, November, 17, 2021