Meet our Panel Members.
Jana Conine
Chair
Jana Conine has lived and worked in Cheyenne for more than 30 years. She is married to Chris Conine and has 2 sons, Joshua who is a Special Education Teacher in Rock Springs Wyoming and Jordan who is a junior at Central High School in Cheyenne. Jana has spent her career working in the human service area working with people to help improve their lives. She has a B.A. degree in Psychology and an M.A. degree from the University of Northern Colorado in Rehabilitation Counseling. Professionally, Jana started her career working for Goodwill as a Vocational Evaluator and eventually became the Director of Rehabilitation Services for the agency. After leaving Goodwill Jana worked for Casey Family Programs for 10 years where she had the opportunity to provide educational and case management support for children and families who were in foster care, adoption and guardianship situations. Jana then returned to assume the role of CEO for Goodwill Industries of Wyoming in 2008. She has been associated with Goodwill for 21 years, starting as a vocational evaluator and working towards her current position of CEO of the organization. Jana became a Certified Executive with Goodwill in 2015 and has continued to expand both the retail and mission side of the agency.
Emily Genoff
Emily Genoff is the Director of Business Development at Wyoming Behavioral Institute in Casper, Wyoming where she has worked to promote access to mental health services for more than 15 years. Emily completed her bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s degree in Public Administration at the University of Wyoming. She is currently working toward her completion of her doctorate in Organizational Leadership and Development. Emily has dedicated much of her professional efforts to connecting communities with social service and health care resources, identifying ways to fill gaps in a rural and frontier state utilizing existing informal and formal supports. Emily also has worked as a volunteer, promoting the health, well-being and success of many nonprofits over the last 35 years in Wyoming.
Lynn Huylar
Lynn A. Storey-Huylar is the current Director of Safe Harbor, a children’s justice center in Cheyenne, Wy. She has been the Director for the past 20 years. Safe Harbor is a Child Advocacy Center and is accredited with the National Children’s Alliance. Ms. Huylar has dual roles in her agency and is also an onsite forensic interviewer. Ms. Huylar has been working in the field of Child protection for over 30 years. She also worked for the Department of Family Services as an investigator, supervised the investigation unit, worked with high risk families in a family preservation program and has understand child development as she worked at Head Start as a Social Worker. Ms. Huylar has also chaired several groups including the State Major Injury and Child Fatality Review Team and the State Chapter of Child Advocacy Centers. Ms. Huylar conducts numerous trainings on Child Abuse, Child Sexual Abuse, Perpetrators who commit these crimes, Child Forensic Interviewing’s, Mandatory Reporting in the State of Wyoming for Child Abuse and Neglect and Court Testimony. Ms. Huylar is a Certified Forensic Interviewer with the National Association of Certified Forensic Interviewers. She has forensically interviewed over 2,000 children in her career and has testified in numerous jurisdictions around the country including a murder trials in New York County Criminal Court-Manhattan.
Laura Dobler
Department of Family Services
Ex-Officio Panel Member
Laura was born and raised in Glenrock, Wyoming and has a passion for serving the citizens of Wyoming, which she proudly calls home. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Wyoming and went on to study Clinical Psychology at Idaho State University, where she learned that her passion was in working with children and families. Laura returned to Wyoming in 2013 and has worked for the Wyoming Department of Family Services for over 9 years in roles as a Social Services Worker, Special Investigator, Social Services Supervisor and in her current role as a Social Services Program Supervisor at the state level. In Laura’s current role she serves as the agency liaison between the Department of Family Services and the Wyoming Citizen Review Panel.
Ilaine Brown
Ilaine Brown is a member of the Career and Technical Education (CTE) Team at the Wyoming Department of Education (WDE). In her role, she is responsible for the Career Technical Student Organizations (CTSO's) and collaborating with educators, students along with business and industry to help raise awareness of career options for students. Ilaine believes that working with community partners helps build the foundations for the safety and well-being of Wyoming's youth and families.
Carissa O'Malley
My name is Carissa O'Malley. I fulfill the role of former foster youth for WCRP. I aim to provide a perspective to the panel that recognizes the imperfections hidden within the system while appreciating the passion of those making positive changes for youth in need. I spent a large portion of my childhood jumping from one foster home to the next. When I was not a ward of the state, I was helping my mentally delayed mother raise my eleven younger siblings. I aged out of care at eighteen at which time I had lost contact with most of my younger siblings. By the time I was twenty, I was beginning the process of adopting one of my brothers. He is now a twenty-one-year-old high school graduate with a well-paying state job and big plans for college. I am currently pursuing my Bachelor's in Psychology and hope to achieve my Ph.D. I am envisioning a future in which I am steering an organization that provides supportive services to families at risk of losing their children to foster care. If it is possible to keep families together with a little help, I believe we should do so. It takes a village to raise a child.
Sara Serelson
Sara has applied her passion for the prevention of child abuse and neglect throughout the continuum of child welfare from prevention to intervention. Sara holds a bachelor’s degree in human services management and a master’s degree in psychology. Sara worked as a Wyoming DFS social services caseworker from 2008 until 2014, and then as a social services analyst where she was instrumental in training on best practices within the child welfare system across Wyoming. Starting in 2017, Sara held the position of Social Services Supervisor, leading a team of child protection caseworkers in Laramie County. In September of 2020, Sara began as the Executive Director of Wyoming Children’s Trust Fund and Prevent Child Abuse Wyoming, the lead agency for Community Based Child Abuse Prevent efforts in Wyoming.
Sarah Urbanek
Sarah Urbanek was born and raised in Cheyenne, Wyoming, only leaving for a few years to go to Georgia. When she returned, Sarah found a passion working with victims of crimes, especially women and children. Sarah worked as a victim advocate for domestic violence and sexual assault for 4 years before transitioning to the non-profit world. In the nonprofit world, Sarah has worked with vulnerable children and their families to help them connect to resources and support they needed to be successful. Now, Sarah is the Executive DIrector of CASA of Laramie County in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where she recruits and trains community volunteers to be advocates for children who are in foster care due to abuse and neglect. Sarah also has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology. SHe is a proud parent to 6 kids, and is a foster parent as well. She believes in creating healthy, strong communities for families to thrive in.
Rose Fry
Rose Fry is a retiree of the State of Wyoming, Department of Family Services, where she worked for 27 years in several areas. She is currently a State of Wyoming Certified adoption intermediary whose goal is locating biological family members of adoptees and their families.