Our Team
Mike Balotti
Founder, President, Therapeutic and Educational Consultant
Mike has worked closely with adolescents and their families since 1998. Prior to launching Redwood Educational Services LLC, he has supported students and parents in a variety of important roles including writing curriculum and teaching at a residential environmental education center in California, helping to develop and establish an international therapeutic boarding school in Central America, as Director of Admissions for a nationally recognized therapeutic wilderness program and guiding students and families through their personal and academic journeys as an educational consultant here in Philadelphia with a different consulting firm.
Mike’s commitment to education and working with adolescents dates back to the early 1990’s when he had his own experiences in alternative education. Having grown up going to Quaker school he always valued the importance of the student having a voice in their process and ownership over their own experience. Mike started his college career in upstate New York, followed by a wide variety of enlightening educational experiences including participating in the Audubon Expedition Institute, a traveling school that focused on environmental education, and completing a semester-long NOLS course in East Africa. After completing a self-designed undergraduate degree combining education, environmental studies, and sociology at the University of Redlands – Johnston Center for Integrative Studies, Mike went on to do some graduate work at both Bath University in England and at the University of Pennsylvania.
Additionally, Mike’s passport is well-worn. He has followed his love of different cultures, the outdoors and adventure travel across six of the seven continents and fifty of the fifty states (including Puerto Rico and several of the USVI for those who are counting). He has stared down a poisonous snake in the mountains of northern Laos (and won, thankfully), ate questionable things with Maasai warriors on an African hillside, hiked through virgin old growth rainforest in Central America, canoed through the cypress swamps of the southeastern United States, jet-boated in New Zealand, skied the Dolomites in Northern Italy, and explored the ancient Andean city of Machu Picchu in addition to many other fulfilling adventures.
When not helping families, Mike enjoys playing with his dog Luca (a therapy dog in-training), traveling to new and remote locations, running, reading, volunteering, following baseball, and playing something that somewhat resembles golf.
Emily Miranda, MSW, LCSW
Therapeutic and Educational Consultant
As a consultant with Redwood, her former career as a therapist provides a supplementary level of expertise in her role. She draws upon her previous clinical experience while visiting and evaluating therapeutic schools and programs all across the country, and this leads to a unique framework in which she offers families a dynamic, comprehensive, and highly personalized consulting service. Her clinical expertise includes: trauma, adoption/attachment, disordered eating and behaviors, substance abuse/dependence, anxiety, depression, grief & loss, self-harm and suicidality, emerging personality disorders, identity development, family systems work, Mindfulness practices, multicultural awareness and sensitivity, LGBTQ affirmative therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Motivational Interviewing (MI), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and EMDR (treatment approach specific to trauma).
When she’s not working, Emily enjoys spending time with her family and friends; particularly whipping up a gourmet meal or exquisite charcuterie board. Her passport is well-worn and she's always looking forward to her next round of international travel. She loves to read, dance, volunteer, and remains politically active as well as engaged in anti-racism and racial equity work.
Emily has worked with adolescents, young adults, and their families since 1999. Prior to joining Redwood Educational Services, LLC, she worked in a variety of settings and roles as; direct care staff in wilderness and residential settings, and as a clinician with adolescents and young adults in wilderness therapy, residential treatment, therapeutic boarding school, transitional living, private practice, and college counseling settings.
During her undergraduate studies in Psychology & Education at Wheaton College (IL), she worked summers in the wilderness from 1993-1997 as an expedition instructor at a wilderness program in Northwoods of Wisconsin. She then moved to the wilds of Alaska, working with an adolescent church-based youth program and organized volunteer work in Denali National Park, among other places in the land of the last frontier. She then moved to Utah in 1999, and worked as a wilderness instructor for 5 years at industry lead therapeutic wilderness programs.
It was during that time working closely with adolescents and young adults, that she decided to return to academia and pursued a Masters degree in Clinical Social Work, from the University of Utah (U of U) in 2003. While there, she completed three advanced practicum placements in different settings: facilitating individual therapy and leading life skills groups with adults who suffered from serious and persistent mental illness (SPMI) in community mental health, then returning to wilderness therapy to work as a clinical therapist with adolescent girls and their families, to finally working with students, faculty and staff at the University of Utah; by offering outreach, individual, couples and group therapy, in addition to teaching a course on Wellness to undergraduate students. After completing her degree at the U of U in 2005, she became a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), then acting as a therapist and Clinical Coordinator with adolescents and young adults in both residential and outpatient settings in Salt Lake City, UT. She then co-founded a holistic residential treatment center for adolescent girls in northern Utah, acting as the Clinical Director there, before she worked in a therapeutic boarding school also as a therapist. She took a brief sabbatical abroad in Switzerland, where she studied at the Jung Institute in Küsnacht, and during that time shared her clinical insight and editorial knowledge for the book, Parallel Process, written by Krissy Pozatek, LICSW.
After her sabbatical, she returned to the U of U and college mental health counseling; working on the campus in their Counseling Center which offers a multidisciplinary approach to therapy to support the academic mission of students on campus. In addition to providing individual, group and couples therapy to students, faculty and staff, she was also the Social Work Training Coordinator, Mindfulness Clinic Coordinator, a Clinical Assistant Professor in the College of Social Work, and adjunct faculty in the School of Medicine, supervising and training graduate level therapists in Social Work and psychiatry residents in the art and science of psychotherapy. She also had a thriving private practice in Salt Lake City, as well as facilitated federal PASRR assessments for the State of Utah. Prior to joining Redwood, she worked for almost 7 years as a wilderness therapist with adolescents, young adults, and their families.