The Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism
2004-2005

Michelle Roberts
Reporter, The Oregonian
Portland, Ore., USA

Click here to read The Carter Center profile on Michelle Roberts

TOPIC: Write about the resiliency of children and how they can - and do - overcome trauma, abuse, and other mental health crises

Senator Fears Loss of Hospital
Peter Courtney urges legislators to act on problems at the Oregon State Hospital before it faces a federal lawsuit or a court seizure.  Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney said Friday that conditions at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem are so appalling the institution is vulnerable to a federal lawsuit and possible takeover by the courts.

Oregon's High-Priced Hospital of Hurt
Oregon spends half of its annual $180 million budget for mental health on the Oregon State Hospital, an overcrowded, decrepit institution that serves less than 1 percent of patients who need psychiatric care.

Suit Brings Changes at Oregon State Hospital
The Oregon State Hospital has agreed to pay $200,000 to the family of a patient who died in 2001 when a group of hospital workers tackled him after a disagreement over soda pop, then tied him to a restraint bed while he was unconscious.

State Slips Put Teens on Streets
At least a third of street kids living in downtown Portland are current or former foster-care children who have been "dumped" by the state, according to a Portland Citizens Crime Commission report that will be released next month.

Years in the Shadows
The first patients arrived by train, shades drawn, in the dead of night.  Almost 400 people -- their conditions attributed to everything from brain fever to broken hearts -- were shuttled into the Oregon State Insane Asylum under the cover of darkness.

Mother Sues County Over Death
A federal advocacy group has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Multnomah County and the state's largest mental health provider after a severely mentally ill woman was found dead in a motel bathtub shortly after being kicked out of her group home.

Senate Opens Talks on Mental Hospital
A Senate panel on Wednesday opened hearings into problems at the Oregon State Hospital, including discussion of whether the 121-year-old psychiatric facility should be torn down and replaced with a new hospital.

State Will Shut Down Youth Ward of Hospital
The Oregon Department of Human Services announced Wednesday that the state will shut down the adolescent treatment unit at the Oregon State Hospital, where as many as a dozen young patients were sexually abused by psychiatric aides from 1989 to 1994.

Indiginity's Shelf Will Not Remain Urns' Final Stop
By the early 1900s, thousands of mentally ill patients had died anonymously inside Oregon State Hospital in Salem. Today, the uncollected cremated remains of 3,490 of them are stored in corroding copper canisters. From ceiling to floor, they line dusty shelves near asbestos-abatement manuals kept in an abandoned hospital storage building.

Oregon Awards Contract on Fate of State Hospital
A San Francisco-based architectural firm with experience designing psychiatric hospitals has been awarded a state contract to study whether the Oregon State Hospital in Salem should be razed and replaced, Department of Human Services officials announced Friday.

Some Sex Charges Dismissed After Witness's Prison Suicide
Multnomah County prosecutors on Thursday asked a judge to dismiss sex abuse charges against four men, including a former youth authority worker and a state foster home provider, because their alleged victim killed himself.

State Failed to Heed Abuse Warnings
Aaron Munoz was born addicted to heroin and died in a prison cell.  On Jan. 28, at age 21, he hanged himself with a bed sheet at the Oregon State Penitentiary. He was despondent, he told his family, because his youth probation officer had sexually abused him for years. After Munoz's suicide, his family said they had complained repeatedly to state juvenile department supervisors about the probation officer, Michael Lee Boyles.

Long Lost Face Found in State's Dark Corner
She was the grandmother no one ever talked about.  Ben Tabler knew nothing about her -- or the rest of his father's relatives, for that matter. It was as though a cataclysmic event had erased the Tabler family history.

Youth Authority Plans Inquiry
Oregon Youth Authority officials said Monday they have asked a group of child advocates and justice professionals to "thoroughly and independently" investigate how the agency handled warnings of abuse involving a probation officer who later was charged with molesting five boys on his caseload.

Study Finds Foster Care May Foster Lifelong Ills
Adults who had been children in foster care later suffer post-traumatic stress disorder twice as often as U.S. war veterans.

Senate: No More Hush Money
Lawmakers unanimously pass a bill to ban public agencies from agreeing to secret settlements, as once done with an abuse victim.

Report: Tear Down Hospital
The Oregon State Hospital must be replaced and one building for patients would likely collapse in an earthquake, a study says.

Report: Agency Cites Lapses in Abuse Case
An independent panel investigating the Oregon Youth Authority has determined that 'several stages of breakdown' led to the failure of agency officials to act on warnings of abuse involving a probation officer later charged with molesting five boys on his caseload.

'Now I'm Really Scared of Them'
Testifying against adoptive parents, Kayla Nickel, 11, describes a life of hunger and violence.  A girl who prosecutors allege was nearly starved to death by a couple who adopted her from the state foster care system testified Wednesday that her adoptive father once held a gun to her head and threatened to kill her after she tried to sneak a piece of pizza.

Foster Parents Found Guilty of Starving Girl
A Marion County Circuit Court judge on Friday found a Salem couple guilty of nearly starving to death a child they adopted from the state foster care system.  Tammy and Christopher Nickel, both 33, did not visibly react as they were convicted of three counts each of felony criminal mistreatment for withholding medical treatment and for failing to provide adequate and necessary physical care to their adopted daughter, Kayla.

Gordly Seeks Federal Investigation of State Hospital
State Sen. Avel Gordly, D-Portland, called for a federal investigation Thursday to examine possible civil rights violations of current and former patients at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem.

Fierce Spirit Lifts Child From Abuse to Health
When authorities rescued Kayla Nickel a month before her 10th birthday in December 2003, the girl weighed 261/2 pounds and was near death, curled in a fetal position beneath her bed.

'Idol' Dreams
Tracy Moore, hair dyed electric blue, strides confidently into a conference room at Los Angeles' Renaissance Hollywood Hotel and faces down the toughest talent scout in the entertainment industry — American Idol's Simon Cowell.