Chronicle of Social Change Takes on Child Trauma Thanks to New Reporting Initiative

San Francisco, CA, July 02, 2015 --(PR.com)-- As part of grant funding from the California Endowment, The Chronicle of Social Change kicks off a new reporting initiative focused on child trauma with particular attention given to children and youth involved in the child welfare and probation systems.

Building on an increasing amount of evidence about harmful effects of toxic stress, adverse childhood experiences and brain development, The Chronicle will focus on issues surrounding child maltreatment prevention and child trauma identification and intervention.

As part of a yearlong investigation into the issue, The Chronicle of Social Change has hired Jeremy Loudenback as child trauma editor.

Loudenback is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and just completed a degree in urban and social policy at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California.

In 2014, while still a student at Price, Loudenback took Fostering Media Connection’s Media for Policy Change course. That summer he worked as a summer fellow, producing stories for The Chronicle of Social Change, and went on to co-teach the same class this year.

“Jeremy has earned his stripes as a journalist who can meld storytelling with policy analysis to paint a clear path to positive social change,” said Daniel Heimpel, founder of Fostering Media Connections and publisher of The Chronicle of Social Change. “While some people misconstrue this with advocacy journalism, Jeremy is in fact a practitioner in the art of impact journalism. I am so pleased that the California Endowment has allowed us to focus his skills on matching the trauma children face with solutions to mitigate it.”

Loudenback’s previous experience also includes blogging about California politics and policy, working with public health researchers in South Los Angeles, and mentoring youth experiencing homelessness on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.

In the months ahead, The Chronicle of Social Change plans to highlight the multi-generational cycle of families in the child-welfare system, how trauma-informed practices can shape child maltreatment prevention, and the way predictive analytics and other data-driven approaches are changing the landscape of child trauma.

The California Endowment is committed to uncovering the harmful effects of toxic stress and trauma experienced by children as well as finding what can be done to create resilience in body and spirit. In declaring that “trauma is the number one health issue of our time,” California Endowment President and CEO Dr. Robert K. Ross has called attention to the many ways in which childhood trauma has created serious long-term physical and socio-emotional issues. The race is on to find interventions in communities, schools, and across systems that can support healing and life-long success.

The Chronicle of Social Change is a national online news site published by Fostering Media Connections, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, CA. The Chronicle produces daily news about child welfare, juvenile justice and children’s mental health issues, and aims to be the hub of mainstream news coverage on issues affecting vulnerable children and youth.

To learn more about The Chronicle’s coverage of child trauma issues or to suggest an idea for a story, contact Chronicle Managing Editor Christie Renick at 213/507-0853, crenick@fosteringmediaconnections.org.