Mayor de Blasio releasing the results of an investigation into a child-abuse death.

City Limits 2014 series “The Limits of Protection: A Child-Welfare Reality Check” has been nominated for a Deadline Award in the public service category. Author Rachel Blustain joins teams from ProPublic, Fortune and Essence in the category.

Blustain’s series examined new research and years of experience on the ability of child-protective systems to actually prevent deaths of children from neglect and abuse. Through 20 years of effort in New York City, despite several policy shifts and vast expenditures the number of abuse and neglect deaths has remained remarkably consistent. Her articles explore why that is, what impact it has and whether the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, advocates and experts are coming up with new, more effective approaches.

The Deadline Club is the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. City Limits won a Deadline Award in 2011 for its coverage of black unemployment, and was nominated in 2013 for its series on three-quarter housing, in 2012 for its reporting on prison sex abuse and firefighter fatalities, in 2011 for our expose of the reliability and health concerns raised by synthetic turf, in 2010 for reporting on the foreclosure crisis and in 2008 for our investigation of the New York City bail system.

City Limits’ coverage of child-welfare policy is made possible by the Ira W. DeCamp Foundation.