Secretary of Health and Human Resources
Janet Kelly
The Honorable Janet Vestal Kelly has a distinguished career in the public and private sectors, specializing in convening leaders to solve complex problems.
Her leadership in the Health and Human Resources Secretariat focuses on ensuring every Virginian can live out their true purpose and potential.
As Governor Youngkin’s Senior Advisor for Children and Families, she led the Safe and Sound Task Force significantly reducing the number of displaced children in foster care and the Prompt Placement Task Force which increased access to state psychiatric hospitals. She was also a leading force behind the recently-signed kinship care legislation, the First Lady’s It Only Takes One fentanyl awareness initiative, and the Governor's transformational behavioral health plan, Right Help, Right Now.
Secretary Kelly serves as Co-Chair of the Reclaiming Childhood Task Force, created by Governor Youngkin via Executive Oder 43, which empowers parents to improve youth mental health by promoting responsible screen use.
From 2010-2014, Secretary Kelly served as Secretary of the Commonwealth in the McDonnell Administration. Because of her family’s personal adoption journey, the Kellys remain staunch advocates for children, families, and workers in the child welfare system.
Priorities:
- Right Help, Right Now
- Reclaiming Childhood
- It Only Takes One
- Maternal Health
- Child Welfare Transformation
- Lowering the Cost of Prescription Drugs