Karen Martin, LCSW is the program manager of Child Welfare Services, East Region, in San Diego County. She manages a staff of 120 Protective Service Workers and Protective Service Supervisors. The region serves an average of 2,500 children.

The region has been restructured to align service delivery with existing school boundaries. Staff is assigned to these five geographic cluster areas so that social workers can forge relationships with key community partners, enhancing capacity to support children and families - neighborhood by neighborhood. This innovative approach to child welfare is called Neighborhoods for Kids. Neighborhoods for Kids is showing promising results in terms of increased placements of children in familiar environments and reductions in changes of placements.