Lourdes Geraldo M.S.W., R.S.W., Acc.F.M. - Oakville, Ontario

Ti O.

Avoid! This therapist has no tools in her tool box and made 0 progression for me in my situation. Every session attended felt like a repeat of the last with no clear plan on how to repair and progress. Review the other reviews, they are bang on. Disappointed parent

Amanda Z.

Lourdes has been working with my daughter for years. She has helped her so much through trauma, and ongoing anxiety related to it. Lourdes also helped calmly mediate prior to our custody case. She was always professional and has really helped our family. During the pandemic she was accommodating and we continued sessions on zoom. My daughter finds Lourdes easy to talk to and feels as though she has really helped her. She has also helped me with understanding and supporting my daughter. Thank you Lourdes

Shannon A.

Lourdes was appointed to heal a broken relationship between a child and his mother. In my view, her failure was absolute. She took advantage of the fact that she was Court appointed to bilk the family of fees for years. They spent tens of thousands of dollars on her each year. She made no significant progress with the child, after years of work. She didn’t appear to have plan. She just kept rehashing the same tired lines. She was evasive, demeaning and cold. In my view, she contributed to damage to the child’s emotional health.

Loving F.

I was delighted to finally have a social worker look into the clinical issues of my case after years of litigation. Unfortunately, after just the first meeting with Lourdes it becomes apparent I had gotten my hopes up when she communicated to me she would not be recommending any form of custody or shared parenting to me – maybe just a small increase in my access. Not only was that a red flag absent of any records and real assessment meetings with either parent, but was also the fact my meetings were ended short at 1 hour – though they were clearly communicated to me to be 2 hours each when scheduled.

Though she did to her credit confirm some relevant subject matters– she decided it was still best that I have no custody and limited time with our child – something that till this very day makes zero sense.

I was left with no choice but having to retain highly reputable social workers in the province to work with me and my lawyer to work through her report. Turns out, the social workers knew Lourdes and knew her very well – they worked together and conducted seminars – but they disagreed with the recommendations she had made in my case and offered to not only help challenge her report but also to assist in formulating questions for the trial – and also to attend at the court to educate the courts about a few subject matters and it’s context in my case.

Lourdes went the extra mile, and totally crossed the line and even recommended that child not be with me on Christmas. I mean how inhumane and cold can you really get? My lawyer, the biggest gem of my team of relatively expensive professionals got to work by first getting the child Christmas with me as it was just around the corner. Sure enough, the judge laughed their case against me straight out of court and stated Christmas is a very important time for children and it is in their best interest to enjoy it with both parents. Period. With that aside, my lawyer got to work for the remainder of all of the many important issues.

I’m not going to get into all of the issues and all of the decencies of the work that Lourdes Gerlado had done, but I will mention the process took a lot longer than it should have. Turns out, in the end, Lourdes had personal and work load issues. I mean, yeah, I totally get it. It’s an OCL report – she’s going to get paid either way. Well, except for the harm that is caused to the family and to the child.

Ultimately, though I was not delighted by the OCL – nor would I recommend them to any separating parents based on the disastrous experience I had, I was however delighted by the courts when an order was made awarding me with custody and shared parenting – 50/50 right down the middle. What was even better was the fact I was given the right of first refusal before any future daycare.

In short, and as a matter of my opinion, Lourdes was unprepared, unorganized, unethical, incompetent, and covertly biased. She had her mind made up before the process even begun. I also feel she caused our child some irreversible damage. Luckily, all of the extra time our child has been allowed to enjoy with me has allowed our child to develop an adequate bond and relationship with me– something that would not have happened absent of an at least minimum 50/50 parenting. Not only would that have not happened and things would have gotten worse, the child would have also had to continue to live the misery arrangement Lourdes wanted for our child. As a result of using the courts to overturn the recommendations of Lourdes Geraldo, the child’s teachers have seen nothing but improvement in not only the child’s emotional health and self-esteem, but also the child's interaction with peers and teachers, as well as with the child's academic progress in school.

Dave

She doesn’t follow facts. She cited the proven lies my ex told as reasoning for her decision on which school my son would attend.

Getting a response from her is nearly impossible. The only thing I received in a timely manner was invoices.

Andrew H.

Once she gets her teeth into you, she won’t let go without a fight. It appears that she is after your pocketbook and she doesn’t provide quality work or caring. She is unresponsive to requests for information, support or guidance. She didn’t achieve any measurable improvement, in fact, I would say that she caused harm. The child she worked with is now medicated and receiving counselling from a qualified practitioner. The worst of it is, she doesn’t appear to care about the child or about the child’s loved ones. Shame on you Ms. Giraldo.

Louise P.

Lourdes came highly recommended by another social work professional and has really delivered for us. She has helped my son tremendously in making the transition with his non-custodial parent away from supervised visitation and towards a healthier relationship, and her insights have made this much easier for me to cope with the concerns I have.

C. R.

No follow-up, no paperwork, no report, and like another person said, the only timely thing she did was deliver invoices and collect money. Horrible! Unacceptable in every way!