Ken Picard

Ken Picard brings long-form, narrative reporting to parenting and caregiving stories, treating family life as something shaped by grief, disability, health systems and work, not just milestones at home. He is a senior staff writer at Seven Days, where he has written news, features and investigative pieces for more than two decades. With more than 25 years in newspaper journalism and a record of regional and national awards, he approaches parenting coverage with the tools of an experienced investigator and storyteller.

"Love, Dad" and complex caregiving stories

Picard’s feature “Love, Dad: A Father’s Story” shows his approach to parenting through the lens of caregiving under strain. The story follows Frank Cioffi, who honors his daughter’s memory by adopting Frankie, her autistic son, and planning for the child’s future through Riverflow Community. Picard reports in detail on the death of Alexa Rose after years of opioid abuse, the impact on Frankie, and the decision by Cioffi to become the boy’s legal parent, swapping the role of doting grandparent for full-time responsibility.

He explains Frankie’s autism diagnosis and the challenges of ensuring long-term care when a single, older parent must think beyond his own lifetime, tying family decisions to questions of disability services, housing and financial planning.

The piece is built around scenes and direct quotations, including Cioffi’s letter to his late daughter, and it follows the family over time rather than treating them as a case study. Picard uses Cioffi’s work as a business leader to show how professional networks and local institutions are pulled into the project of caring for children with complex needs. His reporting keeps the focus on the emotional weight of parenting while showing the structural realities families face when addiction, bereavement and special needs intersect. This mix of intimate narrative and system-level detail distinguishes his parenting coverage from generic lifestyle pieces.

Writing what he knows as a father

Picard also writes about parenting from his own experience, using first-person essays to examine decisions and rites of passage.

In “Making The Cut,” he describes himself as a secular dad wrestling with whether to circumcise his newborn son after the American Academy of Pediatrics shifted from a neutral stance to one that highlights health benefits. The piece combines personal anxiety and family discussion with a clear summary of medical research on sexually transmitted infections, urinary tract infections and cancer risk, showing how a parent weighs evidence rather than tradition.

He presents the final decision in clinical, unsentimental terms, emphasizing that it was driven by the balance of risks and benefits rather than cultural or religious pressure.

In a Backstory article about driver education, Picard chronicles taking his 16-year-old daughter for her road test while wrapping up a reported piece on driver training.

The narrative tracks the logistics and nerves of the day and links them to his reporting process, illustrating how his role as a father informs the questions he asks about policy and practice. Across these essays, he writes plainly about fear, responsibility and the compromises parents make, grounding them in concrete situations rather than abstract advice. His regular contributions to the parenting magazine Kids VT extend this approach, offering service-oriented stories that draw on his reporting skills and lived experience.

Parenting decisions in wider social and ethical contexts

Picard’s parenting work sits inside a broader portfolio of features and investigations that connect individual families to larger systems. He was the first journalist to expose the thousands of undocumented workers in the state’s dairy industry, revealing how labor conditions and immigration status affect households and children dependent on that work. He has also reported on systemic human trafficking in Asian massage parlors and Chinese restaurants, showing how exploitation intersects with family separation and economic pressure.

This history of investigative reporting informs his parenting stories, which often acknowledge the pressures created by health care, employment and social services.

His culture coverage frequently highlights helpers and caregivers, reinforcing that parenting does not happen in isolation.

In a film feature on Bess O’Brien’s “Every Day: Big and Small,” Picard focuses on how the documentary gives “helpers” the spotlight, including those who support children and vulnerable people in daily life. A book spotlight with forester and ecologist Ethan Tapper centers on “The Forest Year,” tying environmental stewardship to the long-term world inherited by younger generations. These pieces position parenting within an ecosystem of teachers, advocates, medical professionals and community organizers, and they show Picard’s instinct to connect family stories to the people and policies around them.

Culture, work and community life around families

Beyond parenting-specific stories, Picard writes widely about culture, work and business, often with an eye to how ordinary people navigate change. He has covered how local journalists adapted as print media declined, explaining shifts in employment, audience habits and news consumption that influence how families receive information.

A feature on a new advertising campaign aimed at healing strained relations across a national border examines public sentiment, economic ties and the messaging that shapes everyday perceptions. In a profile series, he has written about local figures such as Ali Dieng and tradespeople like locksmith Eric Dion, portraying their work in ways that highlight safety, trust and community obligations.

Picard also produces practical guides and service pieces, such as an article on choosing the right self-publishing option for authors.

Even in topics far from parenting, his reporting style is consistent: he starts with specific people, explains the systems they operate within, and gives readers enough detail to understand consequences and trade-offs. For parenting and family stories, that means connecting private decisions to public structures in clear, concrete prose.

A pitch that engages with those structures - whether in health, education, disability, work or caregiving - and offers real families and helpers at the center will align with how Picard already reports and writes.