FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Joe Piasecki
joep (at) pasadenaweekly.com
(626) 584-1500

The Children’s Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego School of Law has selected the Pasadena Weekly as a first-place recipient of the 2007 Price Child Health and Welfare Journalism Award.

The Price awards are presented annually for journalism that makes a significant impact on the wellbeing of children in California and advances the understanding of child health and welfare issues.

The Pasadena Weekly is being honored for a five-part investigative series published last summer in which deputy editor Joe Piasecki examined flaws in the foster care system. Systemic inadequacies and long-term neglect of youth in state care, he found, leave hundreds of teenagers each year few options other than a desperate and dangerous life on the streets.

This is the first year that weekly newspapers have been invited to compete for a Price Award.

The Pasadena Weekly series tied with a series by the San Francisco Chronicle that also focused on foster care issues. Piasecki will receive a $1,500 cash prize and in November be presented with a plaque in a ceremony at the University of San Diego.

“This outstanding series focuses much-needed attention on the dangers and pitfalls that await thousands of youth aging out of the foster care system each year,” reads a notification letter from the institute.

Piasecki’s “Throwaway Kids” series received a second-place AAN award this year in the Feature Story category for papers 60,000 circulation or under. The series was also honored in February by the National Low Income Housing Coalition with a first-place finish in the non-daily series category of the first annual Cushing Niles Dolbeare Media Awards.

“Throwaway Kids”:
Part one
Part two
Part three
Part four
Part five
Companion editorial

Learn more about the Children’s Advocacy Institute, administrators of the Price award, at www.caichildlaw.org.