Roberta Baker, award-winning journalist, reporting on new grant about youth mental health

LACONIA — Roberta Baker, reporter for The Laconia Daily Sun, earned three awards from the New Hampshire Press Association for her reporting in 2021. Her two pieces “Staving off eviction” and “Laconia's housing crunch, and what to do about it” tied for third place in the business-economic reporting category. She also took second place and tied for first place in the community service reporting category for her coverage of senior life during COVID and of  homelessness.

“Staving off eviction” outlined the importance of free legal resources through the Legal Advice Referral Center and NH Legal Assistance that help tenants understand and assert their rights during a time when unstable housing and utility access presented a serious pandemic risk. “Laconia’s housing crunch, and what to do about it” discussed the underlying causes and poignant fallout of the affordable housing shortage in the Lakes Region.

Baker is currently reporting under a grant from the Herr Family Foundation. The grant supports coverage of The Sun’s VOICES project, which explores issues of health and well-being facing local youth.

“The pandemic hit older people and younger people the hardest,” Baker said in an interview. “Any upheaval in cultural, economic or family life has strong impacts on youth. Kids are sponges for family stressors.”

Baker first joined The Sun under a grant from Endowment for Health in 2019, which funded The Sunshine Project, covering social determinants of health in the community. That grant was renewed for a second year, which concluded with a public forum on community issues informed by her reporting. Baker then worked on staff as a reporter with The Sun before transitioning to her new grant project. The grant from the Herr Family Foundation will conclude this September with another community forum.

Recently Baker has been investigating youth mental health, the enmeshment of social media and technology into children’s lives, the importance of having stable, trusting relationships with adults, and the value for kids of having places where they can be themselves. 

Moreover, there are never enough counselors for everyone who needs care. Though the stigmas around addressing mental health challenges have dissipated greatly, they linger, especially for children, who are less likely to express that they need help or to actually seek it.

Mental health coverage is important, Baker said, because it is an issue that “always flies under the radar.” In depth, targeted reporting sheds light on what's really happening, so that those with resources and power can direct their efforts in an effective way.

“Without grant funding, this kind of reporting is not possible,” Baker said. “It’s a lot of traveling to visit places, research, data analysis and time.” 

“Quality journalism is under duress,” said Eric Herr of the Herr Family Foundation. “Grant journalism is a way to seed quality information via the press, and [Baker] is doing that.”