This project was produced by Dan Levin as part of the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2020 National Fellowship.
He had called her stupid and dumb. And she made herself believe the belittling and degrading were tolerable — it would pass. Little did she know it would get worse.
"One of the first lessons we learned was the need for patience with survivors. We were often asking people to relive their trauma when we interviewed them and that carried a high emotional cost for families."
How a reporting team overcame countless hurdles to tell a new story of how children are affected by the family violence they experience, from the time they are in utero through childhood and after.
Juana, an immigrant mother from Guatemala, endured a terrible series of health and family crises. Yet despite her suffering and agony, her church urged her not seek out mental health help.
In Oklahoma, ranked No. 1 for per capita female incarceration, kids were going missing from school because their mothers were locked up in county jail. "This was the most complicated story I’ve ever done," writes 2016 National Fellow Cary Aspinwall.
