[00:00:00] Chris Simonsen: The number one thing we have to do initially with any of our young people is build a trusting relationship with them.

[00:00:07] Make them feel comfortable.

[00:00:09] Delaney: When young adults don’t have safe housing, trusted adults, or a sense of belonging, prevention fails and traffickers step in to fill that gap. This episode explores how communities can close the gap, not with rescue mentalities, but with trauma-informed care, consistent relationships and spaces where young people feel safe enough to stay.

[00:00:30] You’ll hear why prevention often starts long before exploitation is visible, and how schools, nonprofits, and everyday adults can be a part of the solution. Hi, I’m Delaney. I’m a student here at Vanguard University and I help produce this show. Today, Sandie talks with Chris Simonsen, CEO of Orangewood Foundation about how supporting transitional age youth and building community-based responses can reduce vulnerability to trafficking.

[00:00:57] And now here’s their conversation.

[00:01:06] Sandie Morgan: Chris, I am so grateful to have you on the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast. Welcome.

[00:01:12] Chris Simonsen: Happy to join you, Sandie. It’s nice to be here.

[00:01:16] Sandie Morgan: We have known each other a pretty long time, and I think one of the highlights in my career was when Orangewood and you in particular, gave me the Crystal Vision Award and I just want to do a thankful shout out for what that meant. So many of us have worked in this space for a long time, and we often do not stop to reflect on our achievements.

[00:01:50] I have the feeling we need to find a way to give you that award.

[00:01:56] Chris Simonsen: Well, who knows? Maybe that’ll happen someday after I’m retired.

[00:02:00] Sandie Morgan: Oh, okay. Well we can’t let that happen too soon. So, let’s provide some context because we know each other well, but for our listeners here, what is the mission of Orangewood?

[00:02:16] Chris Simonsen: Yeah, so Orangewood Foundation has been around actually 45 years, this year. And it started out with just one project, which was to collaborate with the county of Orange to build an emergency shelter for foster youth. At the time they had a facility, but it intermingled foster youth that were there on an emergency basis with probation youth.

[00:02:41] And so it was quite confusing for these young children that were removed from their homes on a temporary basis to be mixed in with these other children that had committed crimes. So the director at the time, Bill Steiner, went to the county and said I’d like to create a separate facility to house these children that have been removed from their homes until we can find them a suitable placement.

[00:03:07] So the county had a piece of land, but they didn’t have any funds to build the facility, so that’s when General William Lyon, who founded our organization, got involved and rallied the community to raise $8 million. And five years later they opened up the Orangewood Children’s Home and turned that over to the county to operate and run.

[00:03:30] And they’ve been doing that ever since for the last 40 years. So then our board asked themselves, well, what more could we do? We’ve got all this momentum in the community and awareness around the challenges of foster care and child abuse that’s going on in the county. So they decided to start creating other programs.

[00:03:52] And so we’ve been doing that over the last 4...