The Center for Health Journalism’s Child Welfare Symposium and Impact Reporting Fund

 

The Center for Health Journalism’s Child Welfare Symposium and Impact Reporting Fund supports ambitious investigative or explanatory projects on the child welfare and foster care systems, as well as the social and economic policies and conditions that can strengthen or weaken families and communities. We encourage trauma-informed reporting, with an eye toward systemic inequities. We also welcome stories that explore promising initiatives to support children and families.

Our October 24 Child Welfare Symposium is free and open to journalists. It will explore policy and journalism on the child welfare system, which investigates and removes children from their homes at alarming rates, disproportionately impacting children of color, and leading to worse outcomes and compounding family trauma.

The virtual symposium will take place on October 24, from 8:30 a.m. (PT) to 2:30 p.m.(PT).

Click here to register.

Journalists who attend are eligible to apply for our Impact Reporting Fund on Child Welfare.

Grantees receive: Reporting grants of $2,000-$10,000, five months of professional mentorship from a veteran journalist,
monthly virtual cohort meetings, and eligibility to compete for a $1,000-$2,000 engagement grant and five months of one-on-one engagement mentoring.

Reporting themes we support

Projects should focus on the child welfare and foster care systems, as well as efforts to prevent kids from entering these systems in the first place. Projects could incorporate one or more of the following themes: the impacts of the child welfare and foster care systems on children and families, safety net programs, their effectiveness, and their impact on family stability, the effectiveness of government reforms to improve the child welfare system and keep more children out of foster care, new approaches to improving outcomes and to keeping families together, and the intersection of race/ethnicity and/or class in child welfare outcomes.

Click here to obtain additional information.

Source: USC Center for Health Journalism