Janette L. "Jan" Faulkner

Janette "Jan" L. Faulkner On June 19, 2008, Bay Area psychiatric social worker, collector and activist lost her year-long battle with thyroid cancer. Jan was born on May 1, 1934 in Kansas City, MO. Jan graduated from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, MO, and received her MSW in 1966 from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Social Work. In 1971, Jan moved to California for post graduate work in psychiatry at Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco and later became the clinical director of the Pacific Psychotherapy Institute, an out-patient mental health clinic for Blacks. Jan was an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCSF's Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute and she taught family therapy at the Wright Institute in Berkeley. Jan was also the director of social work training and continuing education for Alameda County Mental Health Services. Jan was committed to improving the lives of others and was a mediation counselor for divorcing and separating parents with Alameda County for more than 20 years, retiring in 1998. Jan also maintained a private practice counseling unwed mothers and was widely respected for her visionary work with inter-racial couples and families. Jan opened doors for the Pacific Center, an East Bay LGBT mental health center, successfully influencing Alameda County to provide mandatory county wide sensitivity training for all health care workers. She was a co-founding board member of openhouse, a nonprofit organization building mixed income, multicultural senior housing for the LGBT community in the San Francisco Bay Area For more than 50 years Jan collected Black memorabilia in an effort to reveal and destroy the harmful effects of the stereotypical images. In 1982 and again in 2000, Jan exhibited her collection, Ethnic Notions: Black Images in the White Mind at the Berkeley Art Center and the Macon Georgia Art Museum. Jan published a book about the collection and was the first individual collector to publicly display these images. In 1995, Jan founded The Friends of Chester Himes Black Mystery Writers Conference in Oakland. For more than 10 years, she organized an annual conference at the Oakland Museum to esteem African American writers. Jan established an Oakland high school writing competition that was incorporated into the annual conference and co-taught a creative writing class for seniors in Oakland inspiring two anthologies. Jan is survived by her three sisters; several nieces; and nephews; and many loving friends that are truly grateful to have been a part of her life. A Celebration of Jan's Life will be held on August 3, 2008 at the Berkeley Arts Center, 1275 Walnut St., Berkeley, CA, from 6-9 PM. Donations can be made to openhouse, 870 Market St., Ste 458, San Francisco, CA 94102, The Heritage Retirement Home, 3400 Laguna St., San Francisco, CA 94123, and/or The United Negro College Fund.