Geri Marullo of Child and Family Service, the state's largest private human-service agency, will leave her job Dec. 31 to take a position with a smaller charity that helps poor children.

She is the second head of a major social-service agency in Hawai'i to resign in recent days. Lynn Maunakea, executive director of the Institute for Human Services, this month left her post after eight years with O'ahu's only emergency homeless shelter.

Marullo has had an eight-year run as chief executive officer of Child and Family Service, which serves more than 40,000 people across the state each year and operates with an annual budget of $34 million and about 800 employees. She will start her new job Jan. 3 as president and CEO of the Consuelo Foundation, which has a $4 million annual budget and about 30 employees.

"I was offered an opportunity to work in a different capacity with children," said Marullo, a registered nurse. "Consuelo focuses on the poorest of the poor children — those that have absolutely no hope. It's a very specific mission."

A national search will be conducted to replace Marullo.

Maunakea has a new job as executive director of the Ke Ali'i Pauahi Foundation, a nonprofit organization of Kamehameha Schools that is dedicated to increasing educational opportunities for Native Hawaiians.

The Institute for Human Services hopes to have a new director in place by February.

With a shortage of social workers in both the public and private sectors, it is not unusual to see administrators move from one agency to another. Jon Matsuoka, dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa, said there are about 300 undergraduate and graduate students in the social work program — not enough to fill the need.

"There are plenty of jobs," he said. "We cannot produce enough graduates to fill all the jobs in the public and private sector."

Matsuoka said the school is developing new programs including a leadership academy.

"Geri and Lynn have all the qualities essential for a social worker, but they also have the leadership qualities as well," he said. "That is what we want to develop in our students."

Marullo's new work will include meeting with children and families here and in the Philippines. She said social work will remain a critical profession because the gap is widening between "those that have and those that have not."

"We are seeing more homeless, more families on the verge of dysfunction and we don't have our arms around the crystal meth issue," she said. "I think CFS is in a good position to meet those challenges, and I know the board is working vigorously to find that perfect person for the next decade."

Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com.