Countywide : $12,000 Donated for Waiting Room

A waiting room in the Ventura County courthouse designed to make a visit to court a more pleasant experience for children has gotten a boost in the form of an anonymous $12,000 donation.

The Board of Supervisors will be asked to formally accept the donation Tuesday. The money will be used to help pay the salaries of the two part-time workers who supervise the children at the Ventura courthouse with the help of 10 volunteers.

The influx of cash is particularly meaningful to the future of the room opened in January, 1992, because it has been funded solely through the court’s existing budget, donations and volunteer work, said Vince Ordonez Jr., assistant executive officer for the courts.

Several months ago, the Ventura County Trial Lawyers group donated $2,000 to pay the salaries of the workers who supervise the children. The most recent donor has been identified only as a Ventura man.

The children’s waiting room was the brainchild of Superior Court Judge Joe Hadden, who has presided over the court’s Family Law Division for nearly three years.

“When I got up here and saw all the venom and anger and shouting and ugliness that goes on in a courtroom I really came to the conclusion that it was an inappropriate place for a child,” Hadden said Friday.

Before the room opened, children were often left waiting in hallways or, in some cases involving divorce or custody proceedings, were exposed to angry exchanges between their parents. “It’s better if the children can be isolated,” he said.

So, at Hadden’s suggestion, court workers began the search for space that would eventually result in a packed supply room being cleared out, painted and converted into the waiting room.

With the help of volunteers and numerous donations, the room was furnished and equipped with toys, games, television and videocassette recorder, videos, books and numerous stuffed animals, Ordonez said. A colorful mural painted on the room’s white walls features a collection of animals, including a 7-foot-tall giraffe, an elephant, monkeys, trees and birds, he said.

Hadden said reactions to the new facility have been overwhelmingly positive.

“It took a little time to get people oriented to the fact that it was there and to get people using it,” he said. “The people who work there feel good about it, the kids feel good about it, the person who donated the money feels good. I don’t know anybody who feels bad about it.”