Every Child Achieves Inc

I am very disappointed with the customer service from Every Child Achieves we have been with them for over a year and the therapists were great I don’t have any complaints about them, they always did great with my son and addressing all my concerns but the customer service was very poor. We had two problems during this time first, my sessions were in the morning and weeks before my son was going to begin another program in the morning I let the front desk know and I talked to Natalia about switching to the afternoon and finding another therapist in that schedule she said was going to look for that when the time arrived her response was «we don’t have any availability at that time» so we had to change to do one session per week instead of two like we were doing. Also she added «I let your coordinator know if you want to change providers» at that point I didn’t like that answer because is not easy to start over it takes time to find another one and to get to know the therapist and get my son to feel comfortable working with a new person, etc. my response was «I told you in advance so you can manage to find a way of helping us» but she was not helpful at all I felt like she just wanted me to change instead of working out with me another time or something… I decided to stay at least with one day than no days and after talking with our therapist Betsy she offered to come to my house to do the other session even tough it was not her location, that was great and I felt she cared and wanted to help us.
After that we were doing good and couple weeks ago I received a call from someone I can’t remember her name saying that our therapist was going to leave and she couldn’t guaranteed that I was going to have in home sessions but for sure I was going to continue with one hour at the clinic. I told her I needed the two hours and she said was going to work in that. Last time I was at the clinic I had to talk with Natalia again regarding that and her response was the same as the first time, no availability and look for another provider at that point I was really bothered for her lack of customer service and I told her the same thing they knew before me the therapist was leaving why they didn’t try to find a solution or work with me in a different time or options she said was going to ask somebody else who was working in my case and until today I never heard from anybody.
I called today to find out if we had an appointment or not since nobody contacted me and her answer was «we already informed your coordinator that we are not longer going to provide services for your son» Really??? Where is the customer care there??? Is so sad when you feel you are treated just like a business and not like a person that needs help. I am very disappointed with this place I will never recommend it to anybody and I wish I would have never need them in the first place. Now I am with out a provider looking everywhere where they can take my son’s case and he had just 2 months left before turning 3 and then his services are going to end and we are wasting precious time… So sad

I just now discovered that Every Child Achieves has reviews on here, and I see that there are no reviews for 2015 yet, so I want to add mine.
My son just turned 30 mos. old and he has been receiving services through ECA since January of this year, and I couldn’t be more pleased.
Before his services began, he had lost a lot of his language and seemed to be regressing badly and going more and more into his own world. I was worried that he was becoming autistic or in some other way disappearing from me, right before my eyes.
My son is beautiful and I am always making videos of him, from the time he was born. Recently I went back and looked at some of the videos of my son taken right before his services with ECA began, and I was STUNNED at the difference between then and now — he has come such a long way in such a short time! :) I was, literally, in tears.
He is much more social now and he is trying hard to be a part of the world around him now! He actually reaches out to people more, engages his dad and I more than he used to (he is interacting with us almost constantly and we are LOVING IT), and he is really starting to develop more of a personality than he ever has before. I am so excited and grateful for my son to have the services he is receiving through ECA.
Our services coordinator, Rita, has done a wonderful job at putting everything together and she and Janet Schilling have been amazing in helping to move things along faster so we can get the most benefit for our time.
Everything was explained to us very clearly in advance and provided again in writing so we could fully understand what to expect from our son’s therapists — and all of these services are provided in our own home so our son can be more comfortable.
We were told in advance how long the sessions were (50 minutes required) and how often he was approved to receive each service — one or two hours a week, with the understanding that it was a 50-​minute hour, which is how any therapy usually works. Seriously those who complained about the 10 minutes, and actually left the company over the issue, are doing their child more harm than good because the therapists usually end up being there for an hour or more anyway to setup beforehand and discuss things afterwards. You’re not going to benefit your child by being uptight and angry and looking to fight with people when it’s not necessary. These people are on your child’s side, so appreciate them and discuss any relevant issues with your coordinator or with Janet or Jill. I promise you, if you’re willing to work with them and not be ungrateful, rude or unnecessarily over-​sensitive, they are more than willing to work with you. Just like you, they also want what’s best for your child and they will never know what you want if you don’t know how to communicate effectively. (end of rant)
My son has truly blossomed through this program and he continues to flourish through the services he is receiving: Developmental Therapy with Judith, Speech Therapy with Alissa, he is in the process of getting an Occupational Therapy evaluation and today we were put in touch with the Early Intervention Program at CSUN (California State University, Northridge) and we should be able to begin with them this time next week! So much can be accomplished with one phone call, as long as everyone is prepared and can communicate effectively.
I am so happy and grateful that ECA exists and I am loving watching my son develop more and more of his personality and learn so much from so many different sources. Thank you, Janet and Rita! You are both amazing and I will definitely recommend ECA to anyone and everyone who wants to help their child.
Also, mentioning this here because it’s also a huge help to anyone reading this review: if your child has any oral sensory issues, feeding issues, speech issues, or chewing issues… there is a company called ARK Therapeutic Svcs, Inc. (not in any way affiliated with ECA or any other company in California) that has a huge variety of tools that have also been a huge help for my son, as far as his own oral sensory issues. This company was referred to me by one of my son’s therapists because another family had told her about them — see how this works? Someone helped the other family, they passed that knowledge along to the therapist, she told all of her other clients about it, and now I am telling everyone I can through every means possible… this is how the new «it takes a village» works, lol.
I love the networking that goes on between myself and my son’s therapists and their other clients because it’s like a network of people helping each other out with great advice and tips on how to help our kiddos.
You can do an internet search of ARK Therapeutic for their web address… you can tell them I referred you, if you want, because I already told them they would be getting a lot of new California customers because of me. :)
Thank you so much, ECA! :)

Our son had multiple open heart surgeries and other complications including a gtube. We were immediately picked up by ECA when my son was discharged at 8 weeks old. We saw Freddy, Julie and Tammy for occupational therapy and feeding therapy. Each of them came into our home and not only worked with my son, but took the time understand my feelings, struggles and worries. They worked with us as a family unit and not just as a single patient. We made enormous progress under their care. Our physical therapy was done by Peggy. She worked with our son for more than a year and a half and we were so grateful for her. She worked gently with him when he needed it and she pushed him when he was ready. She encouraged my husband and I to not be discouraged when we felt frustrated and she helped us know when to expect more from our son and to push him. She always took all of our concerns and feelings to heart and we never felt marginalized or frustrated during the time we had her.
I can highly recommend all the therapist we had the pleasure to work with at ECA. And though we had to move on from their company they all cemented themselves as people we will forever remember during a very difficult time in our lives!

Our son is apart of the regional center in Simi valley and our coordinator set up speech therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy. PT and OT is through Every Child Achieves. Our PT is Peggy, and she has a bad attitude, under minded my wife and I on our oldest son. He asked mommy if he could play with her ball and mommy said no, its for your brother and you can’t play with the ball inside the house. Then he asked Peggy if he could play with the ball outside, and she said of course you can. Why would someone allow a 3 year old outside by himself. she was also late, talking on her phone while standing on our porch dealing with some sort of family issue. Plus she would not listen to us in requards to how our other therapist handled our sons walking and made us walk our son because she couldn’t figure out what to do. I called the center and spoke with a supervisor and put in a complaint. Janet who I spoke with was very apologetic nice and respectful and did what she had to do to get a new therapist, and kept me informed on what’s going on. With in an hour I received a call from the physical therapy supervisor Jill, and she also was very apologetic. She then told me she would handle my sons therapy. They were very good with us and did everything they could do to make it right. Thank you Janet & Jill you guys are awesome…

I was really dissatisfied with the administrative part of dealing with Every Child Achieves. The speech therapist arrived 25 minutes late for our appointments for both visits; she stayed for less time than agreed (50 minutes instead of an hour); and she failed to return phone calls about rescheduling with the result that my child has now gone w/​o speech therapy for a week.
When I called the agency to get these issues addressed, the speech therapist’s supervisor Janet Schilling just made excuses: «Well, that’s L.A. traffic»; «We’re only supposed to give 50 minutes of therapy and therapists usually stay an hour to allow for prep, clean-​up, and note-​writing, but they are not required to»; and «it’s not the therapist’s job to notify families about changing authorizations.» The supervisor did not offer an apology for the poor customer service or even an acknowledgement that there was anything worth addressing with the speech therapist. When I asked to switch speech therapists to someone w/​o these customer service issues, Janet said that there was no one else available and that we’d have to seek services with a different agency. So she’d rather lose a client than address reasonable concerns about tardiness, length of sessions, and communicating with clients timely.
In addition, Janet stated that she and the speech therapist knew of a change in our authorization for services from the original 2 hours/​week to 1 hour/​week one day before our services began, yet the therapist scheduled us for 2 hours/​week for the two weeks after they supposedly learned of this change. We were never informed of the change until I called Janet to raise my concerns about the therapist. And when I asked the therapist herself if and when she knew of the authorization change, the therapist said she had only learned of it five days prior– not, as Janet had misrepresented to me, since before services began. When I emailed Janet on this issue, her response was no response.
My feeling is that this agency is a behemoth that treats clients like crap because they can– i.e., there is such great demand for speech therapy services, and this agency has so many established contracts with health insurance and disability services providers, that their attitude is our-​way-​or-​the-​highway. The therapist herself was very good with our child, but she was overburdened with a huge caseload which changed on a weekly basis. It’s too bad that the customer service aside from the sessions themselves was so poor.
We are now looking into other agencies providing speech therapy services that are smaller and still trying to provide stellar customer service rather than treating clients with service concerns like pesky mosquitoes at their ankles.

This company has amazing therapists. My Godson wasn’t speaking at all and had been getting therapy from another company. His therapy was changed to Every Child Acheives and after 1 session he was already speaking words and could communicate. This company has amazing therapist and I highly recommend using this company.