Laurie Udesky is a freelance journalist who has been writing for MindSite News, a mental health news site. Previously she was a staff reporter at PACEs Connection. She has been a reporter and editor for more than 25 years, and has reported on health, social welfare, and public policy issues for print, radio and online outlets. She spent five years as a foreign correspondent in Turkey until November 2001. While there she covered breaking news, health and social welfare issues for many newspapers, magazines, radio and online outlets, including the Dallas Morning News, the San Francisco Examiner, the St. Petersburg Times, salon.com, Macleans magazine, National Public Radio and Consumer Health Interactive. 

Udesky has won a number of national and regional awards, fellowships, and grants, including two California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships. In 2016, her expose "Custody in Crisis: How Family Courts Nationwide Put Children in Danger," earned an investigative reporting award from the Society of Professional Journalists-Northern California chapter.

In 2011, "When Foreclosure Threatens Elder-Care Homes," New York Times, earned an Honorable mention in the Best Investigative Report or Series category from NAREE. For her 2008 California Endowment fellowship project she reported on a new specialty court in Alameda County, California for teens with mental health problems who break the law. "A Safe Place for Troubled Teens," appeared in the East Bay Express, and won a 2010 Price Child Health and Welfare award. As a 2006 fellow she produced for the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, "A Matter of Respect: Training Hmong shaman in the ways of western medicine is saving lives in Merced."

A multimedia project she produced on an irreverent amputee support group for Consumer Health Interactive was nominated for a 2009 Webby award, and was a finalist in the 2008 International Health and Medical Media Awards. Udesky won a 2005 Award for Excellence in Health Care Journalism for "No School Nurses Left Behind," which appeared in Salon.com. She won an award for Best Online Feature Writing in the 2003-2004 Excellence in Journalism competition sponsored by the northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. The award was for her three-part online audio series: Out of the Shadows: Battling the Stigma of Depression.

Udesky was one of eight journalists awarded a 2002 Robert Wood Johnson fellowship from the Colorado Health Outcomes Program at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center to attend the fourth Rocky Mountain Evidence Based Health Workshop.

In 1995 she was awarded the Exceptional Merit Media Ward (EMMA) for her expose in The Nation magazine on health and safety hazards facing garment workers sewing for large U.S. corporations here and abroad. She served as associate editor at Southern Exposure in 1991. Her Southern Exposure series on the shortcomings of federal antipoverty programs also won the prestigious top award in magazine writing from both the Sidney Hillman Foundation and the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE).

More recently, Udesky has also written for MindSite News and Kaiser Health News.

She is a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists and IRE. 

Articles

Work for free or cheap: Job and freelance opportunities of a certain kind

<p>It's common knowledge that newspapers and other news outlets have hemorrhaged jobs. Since 2007, about 30,000 jobs have been lost in the newspaper industry alone.&nbsp;</p><p>Certainly there are good examples of highly competitive journalism jobs that offer decent salaries for trained, and experienced journalists. Although I have not researched the number of such listings, an anecdotal survey of colleagues, and my own browsing of job sites suggest there are fewer listings of jobs, and freelance opportunities that offer livable wages or decent rates.&nbsp;</p>

Reporting Ethically on Children's Physical and Mental Health

<p>How do you tell the stories of children or teenagers who have stigmatizing health problems without causing harm once the story is published? Laurie Udesky offers tips for reporting with sensitivity — but still getting the story.</p>

A Safe Place for Troubled Teens

<p>Alameda County's path-breaking new mental-health court seeks to help youth with psychiatric problems who have broken the law.</p>

A Matter of Respect

<p>To the Hmong, illness is often a sign that a spirit has been wronged, is seeking revenge or wants to settle a favor bestowed in the past. Laurie Udesky explores how teaching Hmong shamans more about Western medicine can help save lives.</p>