Orangewood Children's Home - Orange, California

David Greenberg

This place saved my life,

I read some of the reviews, it never occurred to me to write a review for Albert sitton home/ Orangewood.
In this day and age, “safe space” is one of the biggest buzz words, with that said this place is one of the best.

If you’re in O. W. Then you are facing some harsh realities, one of which is, you probably don’t have a safe space of your own. If I were to look to find the things that this place did wrong, I am sure there would be a few…
I remamber that I was going through a horrible crisis in life, THEY were a foundation of strength, Reason, direction, sanity, support and yes LOVE.
Love when I had none.
I am sitting in a Panera, keeping myself from crying… thinking about the crisis I went through, the miles I have traveled trying to recover ( I may never really recover, what ever that means ) thinking about the progress I have made, the progress I need to make ( or should )
I am trying to be a better person or a better version of what I am every morning I wake up.

No place is perfect, and that’s because humans are involved
I have read some of the reviews and the first thing that came to mind was “so first world“
I am not a psychological expert, I don’t even play one on TV. In the reviews I see a lot of miss placed anger… that’s okay but if you are one of those just remember that they are human too.
That we are all governed by an imperfect system.
I think about the “kids” I met while I was there, I think about how they might be doing, hoping they are doing better than me.
I have ptsd, ( who doesn’t ) over the crisis that brought me here. this place SAVED MY LIFE by giving me a SAFE SPACE to cool out and regroup.

As you can tell I didn’t use “chat gbt” or anything else to write this, good bad or ugly, it came from my gut and plopped it down. I just wanted to get it out, so maybe someone benefits from hearing that a bad situation can only get better if we want it too.

I gave it five stars
( normally I don’t give five, I did because I am sure this place has saved the lives of others too )
I added the photos of me because this is ME
who I am and that I am just as human as anyone else.

Star

Was put here as a 15 year old and was one of the worst experiences ever, I wasn’t allowed to use my phone and barely was able to call the people I knew. Had certain hours to leave the house and they didn’t care about my basic needs like I had to wear contacts and one of them was gone so I couldn’t see. One of the ladies helped me leave and hop the gate because i somehow convinced her that I would be better off homeless. I had my phone and called my mom and my uncle adopted me. Would never recommend going to this place ever again though.

Tyler E28Smurf

I was 11-13years old when my brother and I went into orangewood, we were split up, my brother going to foster care, me being very rowdy, I was sent to a lock down group home in San Gabriel Valley, then it got shut down and I was sent back to orangewood, I was than sent to a group home with olive crest, I then was moved to another group home in anahiem hills, they had horses and a pool. If we got upset and threw a fit. We would be put into a padded room. Staff would also hold you down, one staff on each arm.. it was not nice. I ended up going back to orangewood, but this time I would run away and hang out at the Block of Orange. I did that alot... i also ended up in the juvenile hall next door because I got caught with cigarettes...

卩ㄚ尺ㄖTM

This place is absolutely horrible, there are very few staff that care and they will make up any reason to punish you while treating other kids different or more favorably. Absolutely disgusting to see in a place that should make children feel safe and comforted.

kenneth glaspey

I went here as a child and they held holiday events with gifts for all the children. I do t remember the food, but we all went to the chow hall regularly. They had ways to earn points. The points you could use to buy things, like clothes, radios, candy, snacks, etc.
I was there in the mid 80's though.

Kristy Leavell

I would like to add that I was born in a jail and went straight into Orangewood as a newborn 1979, and then maybe 3-4 more times throughout my child hood in the 80's. I remember nothing but amazing and positive experiences from this place 🙂

Reyna Pineda

I stayed here as a child 2 times in my childhood. It's a child's nightmare. They restrict you of all of your belongings, tell you when to go to bed and wake up, tell you who can call you, when you can go outside. The so called bedrooms and isolated rooms with rock hard beds & the windows are plastic that cannot be broken. Please never bring a child here. It will terrify them for the rest of their lives.

Judy Martinez

When I was like 5 years old back in the early 90's I remember the staff giving me and other kids medicine(Tylenol) and I wasn't even sick.