ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Poynter Institute is proud to announce the 2026 cohort of Covering Child Welfare: A Journalist’s Guide to Impactful Reporting. This free training program, with support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Insita Group, is designed to help journalists build sustainable child welfare and foster care reporting beats.
From Sept. 3 through Nov. 12, journalists from news organizations across the country will participate in six live virtual sessions led by award-winning journalists Fernanda Camarena and Steve Volk. Participants will learn how child welfare systems operate, develop trusted sources, use data and public records to strengthen their reporting, and approach stories about vulnerable children and families with greater accuracy, context and care.
“I know this is a group of journalists who want to get this reporting right,” said Camarena, a Poynter faculty member and program co-lead. “Covering child welfare is complicated, and there are no easy answers. Journalists are coming willing to learn how to ask hard questions, and also willing to listen and learn from each other. And because they’re from different newsrooms, perspectives and different parts of the country, they’re all bringing different experiences.”
“I’m excited to see such a diverse group of journalists from all over the country, with a mix of direct experience reporting on child welfare and those newly interested,” said Volk, a freelance journalist, media consultant and trainer who has spent years reporting on the foster care system. “We’ll have a lot of experience in the group and fresh eyes, too.”
Program highlights:
“The whole purpose behind this course for me is to expand coverage of what has traditionally been treated as a niche topic,” Volk said. “The child welfare and foster care system affects millions of people per year, with lifelong consequences, but most media examines it sparingly, if at all. This system is difficult to report on, but we’ve got tips and resources to make it easier.”
Camarena said she hopes participants leave thinking differently about the choices that shape child welfare journalism.
“There are so many decisions journalists make along the way that matter, from the moment an editor decides to assign a story, to a reporter choosing sources to interview,” Camarena said. “Each decision affects how the story comes out, and how an audience perceives it. In this program, we tackle all of that.”
The 2026 cohort brings together 36 journalists from 30 news organizations and independent journalism, representing a mix of local, regional and national print, digital, television and public media outlets.
3TV/CBS 5 Arizona’s Family, Phoenix, AZ
ABC15, Phoenix, AZ
ABC7 News San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
Bay City News Foundation, San Francisco, CA
BK Reader, Brooklyn, NY
CBS News Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
Chicago Tribune, Chicago, IL
Colorado Public Radio, Denver, CO
Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, NY
The Detroit News, Detroit, MI
Independent/Freelance, Atlanta, GA
Illinois Answers Project/Better Government Association, Chicago, IL
inewsource, San Diego, CA
Georgia Recorder, Atlanta, GA
Her Agenda, New York, NY
Houston Chronicle, Houston, TX
KLAS-TV, Las Vegas, NV
MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, Memphis, TN
Mirror Indy, Indianapolis, IN
NBC Connecticut, West Hartford, CT
PennLive, Harrisburg, PA
Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA
The Seattle Times, Seattle, WA
Stateline/States Newsroom, Washington, DC
Tampa Bay Times, St. Petersburg, FL
The City Reporter, New York, NY
The Imprint, Los Angeles, CA
The Monitor, Boulder, MT
The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia, PA
The Tennessean, Nashville, TN
USA TODAY Network, McLean, VA
For more information about Poynter’s journalism training programs, contact marketing@poynter.org.
Media Contact
Jennifer Orsi
Vice President, Publishing and Local News Initiatives
Poynter Institute
Jorsi@poynter.org
About the Poynter Institute:
The Poynter Institute is a global nonprofit working to address society’s most pressing issues by teaching journalists and journalism, covering the media and the complexities facing the industry, convening and community building, improving the capacity and sustainability of news organizations and fostering trust and reliability of information. The Institute is the gold standard in journalistic excellence and dedicated to the preservation and advancement of press freedom in democracies worldwide. Through Poynter, journalists, newsrooms, businesses, big tech corporations and citizens convene to find solutions that promote trust and transparency in news and stoke meaningful public discourse. The world’s top journalists and emerging media leaders rely on the Institute to learn new skills, adopt best practices, better serve audiences, scale operations and improve the quality of the universally shared information ecosystem.
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