Courthouse Child Center to Open

Two years ago, Beverly Fancher spent an hour walking the five floors of the Long Beach courthouse, counting children left unattended in the hallways. She saw 60.

Today, the first supervised Los Angeles County courthouse child-care waiting area will open, giving parents who have to appear in court a place to leave their children in comfort.

The waiting room is a world apart from the courthouse corridors. The former office has shelves filled with children’s books, board games, stuffed animals and Legos. At the center of the room is a Sony PlayStation 2, something that has judges wanting to come to Room 101 between hearings.

It has been redecorated to resemble an African rain forest, a Middle Eastern palace and a Latin American street.

“It’s a humane and caring way to respond to the fact that children are brought to courthouses for reasons beyond their control,” said Aviva Bobb, Los Angeles County’s supervising judge of family law.

“If you walk down the second floor of this building at 8:30 in the morning, it’s really heartbreaking to see these kids just milling around,” Bobb said.

The waiting area can accommodate up to 20 children ages 13 and under.

Fancher’s Long Beach-based nonprofit organization, For the Child, will staff the room and provide referral information for parents who need medical services or counseling.

Each child will be given a book to take home, Fancher said.

By law, any courthouse built or remodeled in California after 1999 must provide a children’s waiting area. Several surrounding counties already have courthouse waiting areas, and Los Angeles County plans to add waiting areas to its Pomona, Compton, airport area, Van Nuys and downtown courthouses by early 2003.

Long Beach’s waiting area is being paid for under a three-year, $300,000 grant. The money comes from a 50-cent tax on cigarettes approved in 1998.

Judge Deborah Andrews said she has often seen parents with children in strollers wheel them outside the courtroom before testifying.

For older children, Andrews said, providing a safe waiting area also protects the child, who otherwise might have to sit in on a domestic violence hearing in which both parents testify about a beating the child may have witnessed.

Two years after her head count of unattended children, Fancher surveyed the new carpet, fresh paint and video games.

Keeping the room neat is not a priority.

“I just hope it will start looking used,” she said.