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…