Orangewood an Inspiration in Child-Abuse Fight

As my term on the 1988-89 San Diego County Grand Jury began, I remember thinking, “I hope we can make a difference.” That was a tall order in this large county that faces many critical problems and limited funds.

A problem area previously unknown to me was the plight of this county’s abused and neglected children. Shocking county statistics revealed a 97% increase in reported child abuse, 2 1/2 times the number of reported cases in other California counties of similar size. In one year, 27 children were dead as a result of confirmed or suspected child abuse; 18 of them had previously had contact with a public agency. A crowded Juvenile Court and a shortage of space in shelters and foster-care homes added to the problem.

Visits to Hillcrest Receiving Home, the county’s emergency shelter for abused and neglected children, told the story. The shelter is designed for 16 to 20 children, but consistently houses twice that many. For the past several months, about 600 have passed through the shelter each month.

Infants to adolescents are housed in one small, dark wing, providing little possibility of separation by age or sex. The medical examining area is congested. Kitchen and eating areas are inadequate.

I felt ashamed and embarrassed that our county places the welfare and comfort of these children so low on the priority list. Law enforcement officials and social workers must feel pangs of conscience leaving a child there.

Spending an evening at this facility left me with vivid and unforgettable memories.

One small room was wall-to-wall cribs, each filled with a child who could not remain at home that night. A young worker tried to rock three cribs at the same time while attempting to soothe the unhappy infants. A young child cried in the crowded hallway, because she did not want to give up her clothes to don the center’s for the night. A worker explained that the rule is necessary for hygiene and to prevent children from losing their belongings. But that’s difficult to explain to a 3-year-old in an unfamiliar place with strangers, whose clothes may be her only possession. Finding beds for 38 children in space designed for 16 to 20 had to take priority over this child’s fears.

Something seemed familiar here. Perhaps it was the similarity to being booked into the county’s crowded jails, where an inmate’s clothes are secured in a bag until time of release.

These children are the victims, aren’t they? Too often, abused children feel they are at fault, that they have done something wrong to cause them to be removed from their home. This county’s shelter does little to alleviate those fears.

But there are alternatives. We also visited Orangewood, the Orange County center for battered, neglected and abused children. As we stepped inside this impressive facility, we knew this was a very special place. Warmth and caring radiated from the very walls. As we toured the center, the love and pride of the staff, as well as of the communities of Orange County, were obvious.

Every aspect of the center is designed with children’s needs in mind.

In addition to a 14-crib nursery and a 23-bed toddler unit, there are six cottages for the center’s 166 children. Each cottage has its own staff and social worker to provide consistent professional care. The receiving area is private and filled with huge, cuddly stuffed animals and colorful couches.

Each child is examined by the on-site medical staff in a child-oriented examining room decorated with mobiles and brightly painted murals. If necessary, the child is examined in a special sexual-abuse unit upstairs.

Since the average stay at Orangewood is 15 to 20 days, there is time for a comprehensive evaluation before the child is returned home or placed with a relative or foster family. This can often eliminate the need for frequent change of placement. By contrast, the average stay at Hillcrest is two days.

At Orangewood, social workers, attorneys and others who need to meet with the children come to the center, eliminating the need to transport the children from one unfamiliar office to another, as happens in San Diego.

Orangewood also provides support to the foster parents, offering classes, respite care and support groups. In the past two years, there has been a 20% increase in private, licensed foster care homes in Orange County.

The story of Orangewood should be an inspiration to other communities facing an alarming increase in child-abuse cases and a shortage of public funding. The public and private sector in Orange County joined forces to address a communitywide problem with a communitywide solution.

The county donated the land, and the private sector raised 80% of the funds for the building and supervised the construction. The cities in Orange County contributed the remaining 20% of funding. Private-sector money ranged from a $1-million contribution from a leading businessman to a handful of money from a Scout troop. On a Saturday called Orangewood Day, the community raised $126,000 by selling oranges.

In 1985, upon completion, the center was dedicated to the county. The Orangewood Foundation continues to be active in fund raising and overseeing the county’s operation of the center.

The Orangewood Children’s Center serves as tangible, visible evidence that a community decided that its children deserved the very best the public and private sectors could give.

San Diego can do the same.

The private sector, led by the Child Abuse Prevention Foundation, has already taken up the challenge. Its goal is a public-private partnership that would create a center similar to Orangewood, but with even greater services to the children and their families, including a focus on the prevention of child abuse.

The grand jury made a similar recommendation.

County officials nod in agreement with the concept and the county staff is studying the proposal. But there has been no concrete evidence of the county’s commitment to the project. Surely government will not pass up the opportunity to combine forces with the private sector and provide a children’s center that would not be possible without private funding.

Perhaps a trip to Orangewood would help the supervisors comprehend the very real possibility of such a center. Seeing is believing! The feeling of love and commitment to the children in Orangewood is not quickly forgotten. We can use their example of success and even expand on it, but we need to start now. Concerned people are willing to help if the county will lead the way.

Did we, on the grand jury, make a difference? We like to think so. But the difference is small contrasted with the difference that could be made in the lives of San Diego’s abused and neglected children.