Dr. Kimberly Giardina is the director for the Child and Family Well-Being department with the Health and Human Services Agency. She has been in the field of child welfare for 23 years and has a Doctor of Social Work from the University of Southern California and a Master of Social Work from San Diego State University. Dr. Giardina has consulted on child welfare issues at the national, state, and local levels. She led the implementation of multiple innovative initiatives in CWS including the Title IV-E Waiver and San Diego’s practice framework, Safety Enhanced Together. She has also participated on multiple Agency wide initiatives including the development of the Future Generations Council, the Trauma Informed Systems Integration Team, and the Strong Families, Thriving Communities coalition that focused on reducing disproportionality and disparities for children/youth involved with the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. During her four years as the Child Welfare Director, Dr. Giardina has led major systems change efforts with the completion of the 88 Working Group recommendations that were adopted by the Board of Supervisors. Dr. Giardina is leading the transformation of the child welfare system in San Diego into a child and family well-being system with the vision of improving coordination, communication and partnership between family serving organizations in San Diego to help strengthen families and communities so that fewer children experience abuse and neglect. Her passion is to improve policy and practice issues within the child welfare system so that it works best for the children and families it serves.