Hathaway-Sycamores Child & Family Services history

In 1913, she opened a home in Highland Park for 13 neglected and abandoned children.

Her dream came true in 1918 when she moved the children from the Highland Park home to two cottages on 17 acres in the San Rafael hills of Pasadena, the site of Hillsides Residential Treatment Services to this day.

The agency’s backstory was born in 1919, when the Kiddie Koop orphanage was founded in the rapidly growing metropolitan area of Los Angeles to meet the needs of children whose mothers were deceased or otherwise unable to care for their offspring.

Fast forward to 1963, and the Kiddie Koop was touched by Tinsel Town.

In 1967, the agency opened a residential treatment center in Altadena – a therapeutic home away from home where severely challenged youngsters could receive nurturing, healing care.

In 1982 it opened the on-campus school, Hillsides Education Center.

In 1996, The Sycamores opened its first administrative offices in Pasadena – a site that currently serves as Hathaway-Sycamores’ administrative headquarters.

In 2004, Hillsides launched Hillsides Youth Moving On, a highly regarded transitional living program for young adults leaving the foster care system.

1, 2005, Hathaway-Sycamores Child and Family Services became one of the largest private providers of children’s mental-health services in Los Angeles County.

The 2016 One City, One Story book selection, Orphan Train, has a plot revolving around the intersecting lives of an elderly woman who came west on the orphan trains, and a teen-aged Penobscot girl, Molly, who is in foster care.