Wen won a 2004 Casey Medal (project/series, 200,000+ circulation) for this story.

After a brutal rape sent her into a chronic depression, Barbara Paul struggled to be a good mother. Some of that effort paid off: Her two adolescent boys knew that she loved them above all else. But social workers lost faith in Paul, who kept a filthy home and couldn't hold down a job. The state's child protective services agency declared her neglectful and unfit, and sought to terminate her parental rights.

"Barbara's Story," which follows the dissolution of one family and the creation of another, was a leap of faith. It demanded that vulnerable people discuss painful periods in their lives with raw honesty. And it forced me to suppress the knowledge that they could declare, at any time, "This is enough! No more questions!", leaving me with a severely limited story, or maybe, months of work down the drain.

My biggest challenge wasn't getting Barbara Paul to talk to me: She felt she had been wronged by the state and was in anguish over the idea of life without her sons. The prospective adoptive parents, who had already taken in Barbara's boys, had no such motivation. At first, they wanted nothing to do with me. How could I blame them? The adoption process had been full of frustrating delays. My interview requests looked like another potential problem.

So I kept my first request simple: Can we meet over a cup of coffee so I can introduce myself and explain what I'm doing? No notes, nothing on the record, just a meeting. I wanted to ask for something that would be hard for them to oppose. A month later, they agreed to meet.

Then I had to convince them that the story would not harm their adoption efforts, appearing only after everything was finalized; how it would be more complete with details about their experience and the boys' new life. I emphasized that I would respect any boundaries they set. Even after they said yes, I could sense their hesitation.

I went as slowly as they wanted. If they only wanted to talk about A, but not B and C, I'd say fine. I took what I could get, and assured them that I was grateful for whatever candor they showed. As their trust in me increased, they opened up more. Eventually, they allowed me to meet the boys, but only in their presence. Before long, they let me take the boys out alone.

But they imposed some rules. They wanted the boys to be identified only by their middle names, so they could have a fresh start in their new school. They also wanted the boys photographed from the back. That seemed entirely fair to me - and ultimately my editors agreed. Of course, we all want to fully identify our sources. But I strongly believed that the need to protect the boys' privacy trumped this journalistic value.

The boys were cautious with me at first, as if I was another social worker dropping into their lives. But as we hung out at playgrounds or at the swimming pool in their new home, they began to talk more freely. Ultimately, I think they and their new parents saw me as one of the few people outside of the state who understood the details of their lives. In many ways, people are lonely in these difficult and complex journeys, and I became a sort of companion along the way. When the parents fumed about the legal delays, they knew I had reviewed the records and understood what they faced. When the boys talked about their mother's tender side, they knew that I had seen it too.

After the series appeared, I was relieved that Barbara and the adoptive parents were impressed with the articles. Barbara felt she was no longer an invisible woman who never had a chance to tell her side, and the adoptive parents saw a written record of their new sons' lives, one that they believed would ultimately have a healing effect on them.

In the end, that leap of faith paid off, for all of us.