Unlicensed woman diagnosed and treated patients at Broward mental health center
For 10 months, a Hollywood mental health center allowed an employee to act as a licensed mental health therapist, including treating people after diagnosing them as dealing with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and parent-child conflict among other mental health issues.
The problem: The Grief TREE employee didn’t have a license to do any of the above with 14 patients she saw, and she wasn’t a registered mental health counselor intern.
Laura Rickles is a registered mental health counselor intern now, according to the Florida Department of Health. The address on Rickles’ intern license, which she gained Nov. 14, 2023, is that of The Renfrew Center, an eating disorder treatment clinic in Coconut Creek.
But Grief TREE owner Lisa Zucker, the woman who hired Rickles in 2022, has been hit with a one-year clinical social worker license suspension followed by a year probation. Zucker also must pay a $1,000 fine, $2,003 in investigative case costs and do 18 hours of continuing education in ethics, laws and rules governing clinical social work.
After hiring Rickles in September 2022, Zucker, the Department of Health administrative complaint said, “approved, authorized, and/or permitted Ms. Rickles to a. treat patients; b. provide psychotherapy to patients; c. conduct a mental status exam and/or assessment of patients; d. prepare a treatment plan for patients; e. diagnose patients; and/or f. conduct new patient consults.”
But “Ms. Rickles did not have registration or license with the Department to practice mental health counseling, clinical social work, or marriage and family therapy.”
Rickles could not be reached for comment.
An online check of the Art Therapy Credentials Board says Rickles has been a registered art therapist since 2020 and board certified since 2021.
In an interview by text with the Miami Herald, Zucker said she hired Rickles after Rickles claimed her board certification meant she could provide art therapy in private practice.
“She was providing art therapy services at an inpatient eating disorder center when I hired her, and I made an administrative error in trusting her when she told me that she could likewise provide art therapy services in private practice,” Zucker said. “This was early in my role as a group practice owner and shortly after the losses of my dad and my brother. Those losses were my motivation to expand to a group so we could support more grieving people.”
Zucker had no previous disciplinary record on the license she’s held since Nov. 20, 2008.
