We cannot recommend Andy Erkis enough. Hiring Andy Erkis and Stratas Consulting was life changing for our family. We were desperate. We had crisis after crisis. Our family was deteriorating. We could not find the right resources. We kept hitting dead-ends, or not-quite-right solutions. As anyone who has kids with these kinds of issues knows, there is a ton of bad press about the "troubled teen industry". We were so troubled by the information we found online, we would never have had the confidence to make the decisions we needed to make. We were so scared and so worn down, and then Andy said "I know what you're going through, and I know what to do". It was such relief. With Andy, we got expert guidance derived from years of experience in the field, plus personal knowledge of the programs he was suggesting and the individual therapists working in them. He did a thorough analysis of (i) our daughter, (ii) the program/therapist available and (iii) the group of other kids currently attending any program we considered, to find not just a good program, but the right fit for our daughter. We used Andy twice (so far) first for a Wilderness Therapy placement including Transport recommendation, and then for a Therapeutic Boarding School placement. During our daughter's stay at each program, he stayed involved, checking in on us, and with her therapists or program directors. He acted as our advocate. He helped us sort through information and helped us figure out what we needed. He acted as our sounding board when were didn't know if we were being reasonable. He reassured us about the process when we didn't understand, or things changed. Our daughter is doing so much better now. Working with Andy gave us peace of mind when we were dealing with the most difficult situation we have ever faced. I would recommend Andy and Stratas to anyone who has a child in crisis. Client since June 2024 read more

When we reached a point of total desperation with our adult son, we learned about Andy Erkis through a family friend whose own child overcame similar struggles with the guidance of Dr. Erkis. Dr. Erkis listened to us, listened to our son, and made recommendations for programs based on all the information he gathered from our family. He was upfront about the program options, the results and the options after treatment, so we went into our agreement with eyes wide open and all the information possible. Dr. Erkis stayed by our sides throughout the treatment process and kept up with our son's progress. We are grateful for him and his expertise and highly recommend his services to other families in a similar situation. read more

This organization lacks diversity to make sound clinical judgment. And the staff are unprofessional when assessing current placements. They clearly have a bias perspective and only want to utilize programs that they have an affiliation or connection with. Let's diversity your staff and gain some professionalism you are in the mental health field after all. read more

We were hopeful this group would help us. We were very wrong. We agreed to a very expensive contract for in home therapy services over the course of three months. We understood this was their specialty. That this is we're you go when you have exhausted everything but hospitalization. We chose this option instead of hospitalization. The therapist assigned to our family was supposed to visit our child in her day to day environment 3-4 times a week, and help her stabilize her anxiety and begin healing. While we paid the cost in full, up front.... the patient services rarely occurred. During our experience the biggest absence was the therapist spending 1-1 time with her, the patient. Over the course of three months, the therapist visited with our daughter maybe 15 times. This is about a third of the time we understood we were investing in. Most of those visits were on-line and not in person, in her day to day environment as we understood was the program. If the therapist was unable to engage, we wish they would have just told us "no availability". For the most part, I believe we were just another income stream for them. I've challenged myself to share some positives... the therapist did spend at least one session a week with us parents, coaching us through the journey. He helped us alter our approach to parenting in really stressful moments. It was simple things like lower expectations, avoid coaching negative moments, over emphasize positive moments, rebuild emotional credibility, etc. The first two weeks he and the on call team helped us with a couple crisis moments. Several of the on call therapists were great. I wish we would have been assigned one of them. But after that first several weeks the assigned therapist and patient engagement began decreasing at a very rapid pace. Shame on us. We should have spoke up sooner. I personally was wavering on how to approach this given how reliant we were on any help possible during this very delicate and stressful time. If I can be honest, I think our daughters anxiety level scared the therapist. The investment was painful. But we needed any help we could get. In hindsight I wish we would have put both our time and our money into something else to help our daughter. read more

Hello I just wanted to say that Andy Erkis lied to me to get me to go to a wilderness therapy program in 2008. He painted it as a nice outdoor experience. What happened was I spent three months in a program that was worse than prison with untrained staff and I am still dealing with the trauma to this day. I hope all of you working as "Ed consultants" realize that you are just skimming money off the top and adding to the trauma of an already vulnerable traumatized cohort. I am still grappling with the trauma that wilderness therapy has caused and not a day goes by when I don't think of it. You all and especially Andy should be in jail and I'll see you in hell https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/18/paris-hilton-child-care-facilities-abuse-reform/ read more