Choices! Counseling Services

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Pamela Mc Elroy is participating in illegal practices. Do not use her as a therapist. She is not a licensed professional. She will see people's children against their parents permission to get a buck! She doesn't care about children and harmed a child who already had a therapist by seeing this child in addition to the other therapist...really screwed up this kid. Makes me sick.

They have unlicensed clinicians doing assessments that call for licensed therapists. Paula Dranger then signs off on them as if they were completed by her. Also high turnover rate of therapists so there is a lack of continuity of therapists. There is one instance of a therapist working there over 2 years and upon leaving she refused to sign off on the hours he earned (for his LCSW licensing exam)due to Paula being upset that the therapist left the agency (due to the death of his wife). There are ex-therapists who will attest to their unethical and unprofessional behavior. Stay away (both potential clients and potential therapists)!!

Agree with stepdad 100%. They called me to set up court ordered appointments for a relative. On our first visit they had to scramble for paperwork and asked me what therapist we were to see??? Something they should know since they called me to make the appointment. The waiting room is dark and dingy and smells. The building has no signage except for on the front door and so they are hard to find. In the two short weeks we have been going they have called to change appointment times twice.



We went to Choices as a family about 10 years ago for grief counseling and it was a complete waste of time and $. Stopped going after 5 visits because nothing was being accomplished. Tried to go somewhere else this time but apparently they have contracts with government agencies. They probably underbid everyone else and it shows. Unless the court orders you to go here try someplace else.

My wife was involved in a custody proceeding regarding her now 6-year old son. As her spouse, I was required to come in and be evaluated.



Many of the questions which were asked, especially on a lengthy written questionnaire, were irrelevant and didn't even apply to me. As an example, one of the questions was (somewhat paraphrased): "Since my baby was born, I don't have as much time to socialize with my friends" followed by ratings such as "strongly agree/somewhat agree/strongly disagree" etc. Many of the questions were like this, and it was obvious that they were more geared toward a teenaged single mother, and not a late 30's stepfather.



I have five children of my own. I pointed this out to the counselor administering the test, and told her that I was confused about how I was supposed to answer the questions, which were geared toward a single child. The counselor appeared uncertain and checked with the supervisor. I was then told that I should just "average my children out" when answering the questions. I was left with the feeling that these people were incompetent.



Administratively, dealing with these people was a nightmare as well, especially with scheduling and billing. The office manager, Mark Dranger, was extremely rude and condescending to my wife when she attempted to make payment arrangements. He threatened that she would be found in contempt of court and sent to jail if she didn't pay the fees in full. When she went in to get the final evaluation, Dranger refused to give it to her, stating that nobody was going to get it until all of Choices' fees were paid. (This was after another Choices administrator had accepted payment arrangements on which we were up to date.)



The person in charge of the custody evaluation was Paula Dranger, presumably the wife of Mark. During a court hearing at which Paula was present (via teleconference) the magistrate ordered my wife to attend an evaluation session at Choices the following week. He specifically named the date and time on record, and made sure that all parties had the correct date/time. Despite this, Paula telephoned my wife a few days later, a full week before the ordered date for the session, insisting that the session was "today at noon." Paula threatened that my wife would be found in contempt and that she would receive a negative evaluation if she didn't drop everything and come in. Nevertheless, my wife stood her ground, knowing that she had the correct date written down, and Paula later called back confirming that she had "rescheduled"...to the originally ordered date and time.



Paula also lied to the court under oath, stating that we had only made one payment on my wife's account. We had made multiple payments in keeping with a payment arrangement which we had made, which was fully current as of that date. Paula's report was laden with inconsistencies and nonsensical information. Most notably, the report stated that my wife would benefit from improving her relationship with her father. Her father had been deceased for a full year as of the date of the report.



The report also claimed that my wife's son was afraid of her and didn't like being around her. This is ludicrous and laughable to anyone who knows our family--this child is rarely more than ten feet away from her, she is his Little League coach and constantly spend time together. Understandably, most of Paula's incompetent report was thrown out in court. However, this was after we wasted hundreds of dollars plus numerous trips to their office which is an hour away from us.



Apparently, this counseling service is sometimes ordered by the court. However, for those voluntarily seeking counseling, I'd recommend making other "choices".