Selected Writing

Award Winning Articles
Dame una Chansa, Give Me a Chance. Winner of the 1999 International Labor Communicators Association's Max Steinboch award for the Humanitarian Spirit in Journalism. A story about how a social worker took a chance on a client charged with felony child abuse and unlocked a mystery that saved a family.

Unmasking Dean Curtis. Many corporations have rushed to offer solutions to the welfare-to-work problem, with private enterprise "know how," playing politics and playing fast and loose with their accounting. A group of dedicated employment social workers in Lompoc, Santa Barbara County, unmasked the truth behind the hype. This story is a classic study of the clash of ethics between cultures of private enterprise and public service, and why the profit motive is inappropriate in the delivery of public services.

Kathleen Schormann and the Unquiet Death of Lance Helms. A tragic story of the system's failure and a brave social worker's refusal to back down and look the other way.