A FLORIDA FAMILY COURT THERAPIST WAS CHARGED WITH CHILD ABUSE. NOW SHE WORKS WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN.

The office was dim and small, too small to fit the six children, their father, and the therapist tasked with reuniting them. The last time they had all been in the same place, the father had threatened to burn the house down with the children inside, according to a petition for a restraining order filed by their mother. Now they were sitting beside him in a circle next to coloring books and children’s toys. Isabella was crying. Ginny felt like throwing up. The children had no choice but to be there. A Florida family court judge had ordered it.

The session was overseen by Rosie Harkness, a reunification therapist who was responsible for facilitating the children’s court-ordered visits with their father. She had wavy brown hair and a soft, concerned way of speaking, occasionally holding her hand to her heart. Sometimes she brought the children’s favorite snacks to visits, and often encouraged them to remember the good times with their father, they recalled.

But what the Smith children didn’t know that day in February 2023 was that Harkness had herself been criminally charged with child abuse in 2007. According to the victim’s account in a police report, Harkness had choked and scratched her 14-year-old daughter before her husband — the girl’s stepfather — punched the teen repeatedly, giving her a black eye. Harkness’ case resolved in a plea of no contest to felony battery in exchange for withheld adjudication, a Florida-specific outcome that allows courts to find fault without a formal conviction. After Harkness’ arrest, her daughter obtained a restraining order against her, which remained in place for 14 years.

Harkness did not respond to multiple requests by the South Florida Sun Sentinel for an interview after asking to see written questions in advance. She declined to respond to a detailed list of questions, saying in a text, “I realize you are doing your job, as I too am doing mine.”

Florida law generally disqualifies people with withheld adjudications for felony battery, like Harkness, from working in schools, day cares, hospitals or other settings requiring contact with children and vulnerable adults. But it does not automatically prevent them from obtaining therapy licenses or from working with children in family court. The Leon County court system did not respond to questions about whether it has any rules governing the appointment of family court professionals with criminal histories or the disclosure of those histories to parents.

Despite her arrest, Harkness received a clinical social work license from the state of Florida immediately after finishing her probation and has since worked on dozens of family court cases, according to her resume and state licensing records.

Though Harkness’ criminal history is unusual for a therapist actively working with children, experts and advocates say, other aspects of the Smith children’s situation are common. Across the country, many family court professionals have personal experience with domestic issues including estrangement from their own children, according to family court researchers.

Harkness remains estranged from her own daughter, Kimberly Straile, the victim in the child-abuse case. Now an adult, Straile was shocked to hear that her mother is working with children as a therapist when contacted by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

“It’s absolutely insane to me,” she said. “Absolutely insane, and heartbreaking, and scary.”

‘I know staying with him would have resulted in my death’

The mother of the six children, Mallory Smith, said the abuse began only a year into the marriage, according to Leon County court records.

She had met Timothy Smith in the military, and they wed in October 2004. A year later, he pushed Mallory down the stairs while she was pregnant, the first in a series of violent incidents that increased in severity and frequency until she said she began to fear for her life, according to her account in their divorce proceedings. In the years leading up to their separation, she said her husband swung a hammer at her head, tried to push her out of a moving car, and threatened suicide with a shotgun, one of several guns he owned.

“I know staying with him would have resulted in my death,” Mallory Smith wrote later to a parenting coordinator in an email that was filed in court records.

Many of their six children witnessed their father’s abuse and violent episodes, while some of them were abused themselves, according to Mallory Smith’s testimony in court records. Timothy Smith choked one of the children and asked another who had cut themselves why they did not “go all the way,” according to government records and Mallory Smith’s testimony in divorce records.

But their father denied any abuse, saying that his wife was inventing the domestic violence allegations to try to win in court.

“The Respondent believes the Petitioner is weaponizing the Court system to gain an upper hand in future dissolution of marriage with minor children proceedings,” he wrote in a filing.

Timothy Smith was never arrested or charged with domestic violence against his wife or children. The Department of Children and Families investigated him at least five times, but all of the investigations were closed without further action. He declined to speak to the Sun Sentinel when reached by phone, saying he would communicate only in writing. He did not respond to a detailed list of questions about the divorce or the domestic violence allegations.

In 2021, the family reached a breaking point, Mallory Smith told the Sun Sentinel. One night, while her parents were fighting in another room, 13-year-old Isabella attempted suicide in her bedroom.

“I couldn’t deal with the screaming anymore,” Isabella told the Sun Sentinel.

After the attempt, Isabella was hospitalized on a mental health hold. Mallory Smith, meanwhile, began preparing to take the children and leave her husband for good. A few months later, in August 2021, the couple got into another fight in which Timothy Smith became physical, according to police reports and a petition for a restraining order. Mallory Smith called her mother, who called the police.

“I am going to destroy you,” she recalled Timothy Smith saying to her during the fight, according to the restraining order petition. “I am going to burn this house down with you in it.”

He then looked at his watch and remarked on the response time of the Tallahassee police, she wrote. “I could be killing you right now and they would never make it in time,” he said, according to her petition.

Timothy Smith left before the police arrived. Isabella had no idea that the police were coming until she heard pounding on the door and opened it to find multiple officers outside. Her father came back a few minutes later, spoke to police, and then left again, taking three guns with him, according to court records.

That day in August was the last time the family would share one home. The same day, Mallory Smith went to the courthouse and obtained a restraining order, saying she was afraid for her own life and the lives of their children.

She filed for divorce less than two months later. Timothy Smith, meanwhile, sought to vacate the restraining order and to have time with their children, arguing that his wife was alienating them from him.

A year later, the children met Rosie Harkness for the first time.

‘It felt like we were being treated like property’

Shortly after Mallory Smith and the children left in 2021, the judge overseeing the restraining order case heard her testimony about the alleged abuse and approved a final injunction prohibiting her husband from contacting her. Meanwhile, a different judge overseeing their divorce case determined that the Smith children should begin “therapeutic supervised visitation” with their father, a form of visitation with an estranged parent that involves a therapist playing an active role.

Smith began searching for a therapist, which she said the divorce judge had requested her to do. But multiple professionals she spoke to declined, she recalled, one of them telling her it would not be ethical due to the allegations of abuse.

Eventually, she found Harkness, who she said was the only therapist she spoke to at the time who agreed to oversee the visits. In July 2022, the Smiths signed an agreement to appoint Harkness as the supervised visitation therapist. Harkness’ role in the Smith case eventually changed to reunification therapist.

The children were given little to no information about the supervised visits until they began, three of them told the Sun Sentinel. Their mother was forbidden from discussing the custody litigation with them in detail, and she told them only that they would have to begin seeing their father in sessions with the presence of a therapist.

All of the children except for the oldest son said they did not want to participate, according to one of Harkness’ reports. The son, Anthony, “expressed some openness to communication” but said he was concerned about how his own feelings would affect whether his siblings had to communicate with their father.

The children’s wishes did not alter the court’s decision. A judge had determined that their father had a right to see them.

“One of the big problems me and my siblings had was that it felt like we were being treated like property,” Isabella told the Sun Sentinel.

‘We don’t even know what they do’

The collection of treatments now known as reunification therapy emerged as a proposed cure for “parental alienation syndrome,” or PAS, a controversial concept coined by psychiatrist Richard Gardner in the 1980s.

In a 1999 article, Gardner wrote that alienated children “actually want to be forced to visit” the parent they say they don’t want to see.

“The court’s therapist must have a thick skin and be able to tolerate the shrieks and claims of impending maltreatment that PAS children often profess,” he wrote. “Doing what children profess they want is not always the same as doing what is best for them.”

Though the syndrome is now widely debunked, Gardner’s ideas took root in family court, evolving into what is now known simply as parental alienation. While some researchers have found evidence to support the concept’s existence, critics argue that allegations of parental alienation are frequently used as a tool to invalidate legitimate claims of abuse.

In the decades since, family courts have increasingly relied on reunification therapy, including in Florida, where, for years, family courts have mandated children into treatment, either in the form of outpatient sessions or intensive camps.

But the practice has sparked national backlash, especially over the intensive camps. In one high-profile case out of Utah, two siblings barricaded themselves in a room to avoid being sent to a camp with their father. Multiple states, including California, Utah, Tennessee, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Colorado, have since adopted laws limiting family courts’ ability to send children to out-of-state programs. Florida has not.

Despite its frequent use in Florida’s family courts, research into the therapy’s effectiveness is limited. Much of the existing research in support of intensive reunification therapy programs was either fully produced or heavily influenced by those who stand to profit from the programs, critics say. In a comprehensive 2022 study published in the Journal of Family Trauma, Child Custody & Child Development, Jean Mercer, a psychologist and prominent critic of reunification therapy, examined six intensive reunification therapy programs and found that many of them had little to no research demonstrating effectiveness. Meanwhile, Mercer noted, no research has been done on the potential harms of the therapies.

Not only is there limited research into reunification therapy, experts say, there is also no uniform framework for how to practice it. Rather, everything that takes place during a session is at the discretion of the individual therapist, according to family court scholars and reunification therapists interviewed by the Sun Sentinel.

“Nobody has ever published any description of how things are done in these outpatient programs,” Mercer told the Sun Sentinel. “We’ve got a description of intensive programs. Outpatient, I don’t even know if they all do the same thing. There could be 100 different things they do and call it reunification therapy. Since we don’t even know what they do, there’s no way to know whether it is safe and effective.”

In Florida, practitioners of reunification therapy also operate with almost no oversight.

There is no specific reunification therapy license, meaning that any licensed therapist — including clinical social workers, marriage and family therapists, and psychologists — can administer it. While Florida law requires specific training for other family court roles like mediators and parenting coordinators, the state has no rules regarding training or certification for reunification therapists.

“One of the challenges we have in Florida is there’s no clear requirement on the part of the professional to be qualified as a reunification therapist,” said Dr. Lisa Saponaro, a psychologist based in Plantation who practices reunification therapy. “… There’s not really a clear definition of what is a reunification therapist and what training would qualify someone for the position.”

There is also no statewide roster of reunification therapists, so there is no way to know how many of them have criminal histories like Harkness. The same is also true for other family court roles, like psychological evaluators and guardians ad litem.

No one who worked within the Leon County court system provided the Smith family with any information about Harkness’ past.

In response to questions about Harkness’ involvement in the family court system, Andrea White, the Second Judicial Circuit’s general counsel, said that Harkness “is not a contracted court provider” with the circuit and referred any questions about her to the attorneys who appear in her cases or to the Florida Department of Health.

“The court cannot provide legal advice regarding court rules and is unable to comment on matters related to any individual case,” White said in response to questions about whether the Leon County court system has any rules regarding court professionals’ criminal histories.

Despite the lack of regulations, Saponaro and other proponents of reunification therapy say that when performed properly, it serves as a crucial tool to repair relationships between alienated children and their parents. Several have described working with children who realized through the therapy that they had been alienated and now have a loving relationship with the parent they once rejected.

Even children who do not fully reunite with their parents can benefit from the therapy, which gives them opportunities to address their grievances, Saponaro said.

“I think it’s a great opportunity to allow apology to occur,” Saponaro said. “It doesn’t mean everything’s healed. It allows an opportunity for the child to be heard about how they felt harmed, and for the parent to attempt to validate that.”

‘Longstanding parental conflict’

The Smith family’s visits first took place over Zoom before transitioning to in-person sessions. They often revolved around conversations about the children’s school or daily lives, according to interviews with the Smith children and Harkness’ reports. During some of the early virtual visits, Timothy Smith apologized to the children about his “past mistakes,” Harkness wrote in her reports.

But when some of the children tried to confront him about instances of abuse or violence, Isabella and Ginny told the Sun Sentinel, Harkness would often ask them what they had done to cause his behavior or simply redirect the conversation.

Harkness frequently reminded the children that their father had a “legal right” to them, Isabella told the Sun Sentinel.

The visits often left Ginny questioning her own feelings or recollections of events throughout her childhood, something that persisted even after the sessions ended.

For Anthony, who was 17 at the time, the visits felt more like “clocking in.”

“I didn’t feel like progress was made or like I was heard,” he told the Sun Sentinel. “Or that I felt we were working something out. It felt like a formality, something that was being done to get out of the way.”

In a 16-page court report filed shortly after virtual visits began, Harkness repeatedly referred to the family’s history as “arguments.” She did not use the terms “abuse” or “domestic violence” except when quoting a child who called their dad an “abuser.” And according to the mother’s court testimony and interviews with the children, Harkness did not mention several violent incidents the family had disclosed to her.

“Exploration of family history revealed a pattern of longstanding parental conflict that was often escalated in nature (yelling, broken items, temper outbursts, arguing),” the report said. “The children appear to have been sheltered from the heat of many of the arguments until the time of COVID wherein everyone was home, and the children became aware and experienced the arguments more heavily … During times of arguments, it is told the children would help shelter the younger ones from the parental conflicts by moving them to another room and placing headphones on them so they would not hear the yelling.”

The report mentioned “an incident involving a banister; and another altercation, of unclear circumstances between VS [one of the sons] & dad, recounted by a sibling as being very heated.”

A month after the visits began, Mallory Smith stopped taking her children and filed a motion to end the visits and discharge Harkness. She said in a motion that the visits were causing two of the children to become suicidal. A therapist for one of the two children affirmed what Mallory Smith said, while the other child’s therapist told the court that the in-person visits were exacerbating his mental health issues.

At a hearing, when asked about Mallory Smith’s grievances, Harkness defended her omissions. According to a judge’s summary, Harkness acknowledged the mother had disclosed domestic violence but said she excluded it “because her role is to understand the dynamics between the father and children.” Harkness also denied knowing about any abuse allegations involving the children and instead raised concerns that Mallory Smith was alienating them against their father, according to the judge’s summary.

In her previous reports, Harkness had written that the children had a “shared negative narrative” about their father and were unable to share any positive experiences with him, a “lack of ambivalence common in cases where there are parent-child contact problems of a significant nature.”

The guardian ad litem assigned to the custody case took issue with Harkness at the hearing, according to the summary, saying that “her position was that Ms. Harkness was not a good fit” to oversee the visits. But the judge opted to keep Harkness on as a therapist anyway, and the visits continued.

Harkness’ 2007 criminal charges involving the abuse of her own child do not appear to be mentioned anywhere in the court record for the Smith divorce case.

Harkness’ criminal past

It was 2007 when Harkness’s 14-year-old daughter, Kimberly Straile, left her mother’s home for good.

In interviews with the Sun Sentinel, Straile, her childhood best friend and her father described a home life characterized by physical and emotional abuse. Her parents were never married, and for years, Straile and her sisters had lived with their mother. They were born in Miami, where Harkness grew up, before moving to Tallahassee with their mother when Straile was 4 or 5. Much of their childhood was spent in Harkness’ sole care, though they would visit their father when they could.

During that time, Straile said her mother frequently beat her. Her best friend, Terra Lashley, said that she witnessed at least one of the beatings. Harkness and her new husband, the girls’ stepfather, were both strict Christians, and religion was often used to justify the beatings, Straile said, which her mother saw as discipline, not abuse. When she was 12, her stepfather, Sam Harkness, gave her and her sisters promise rings, she recalled, to ensure they did not have sex until marriage.

Meanwhile, from 2000 until September 2007 — the same month as her arrest — Harkness was working as a substance abuse, mental health and behavioral social work intern for the Department of Children and Families, according to a copy of her resume.

The day of the incident that led to Harkness’ arrest, 14-year-old Straile had “verbally disrespected” her mother, according to a police report. Harkness told her to wash her mouth out with soap, then choked her, scratched her, and pushed her, causing her to hit her head on the bathtub, the girl told police. She said that her stepfather then punched her repeatedly, giving her a black eye, while she screamed for him to stop. At one point, Straile gave him back the promise ring he had given her. He told her she didn’t deserve it.

The girl also told police that she could not confirm whether Rosie Harkness had held her down while her stepfather was hitting her because “her eyes were closed and all she was doing was screaming and hoping that Mr. Harkness would stop,” according to the arrest report.

Before Straile’s father picked her up for a visit in Miami days later, he said Harkness called him ahead of time to tell him she had a black eye so he “would not be alarmed,” according to the report.

She told him that “the only way” she could “get control” of her daughter was by grabbing her by the throat, and when she did, Straile fell and hit her face on the bathtub, which caused her to get a black eye, he said, according to the report.

No record of charges involving the stepfather appear in court records. He did not return voicemails seeking comment.

A year later, Harkness pleaded no contest to felony battery in exchange for a finding of adjudication withheld. She was sentenced to three years of probation. In 2012, despite her felony battery record and less than a year after completing her probation, she obtained a clinical social work license from the Florida Department of Health, state records show, which allowed her to become a full-time reunification therapist. Then she began working with other people’s children.

As of 2026, she has overseen at least 43 family court cases, according to her resume, and also offers internships to social work students at Florida State University, according to the school’s website. The university did not respond to questions about its vetting process by the time of publication. The Leon County Clerk’s Office did not respond to requests for a list of all custody cases that involved Harkness.

The Sun Sentinel was able to locate three. All of them included allegations that one of the parents had physically or emotionally abused their own children.

In one of them, a father accused of physically abusing his 9-year-old son requested that he be granted reunification therapy with the son and that Harkness be appointed to oversee it, according to court records. A guardian ad litem also advocated for Harkness’ appointment. But the boy’s mother disagreed, arguing in a filing that the father had rejected a number of other counselors and that Harkness was the only therapist he had suggested for several months.

“Tallahassee presents a limited market of counseling professionals many of whom have been the subject of Father’s objections, or refuse to communicate with Father due to his aforementioned behavior,” she wrote, “which poses the following critical question: Who, if anyone at all, is qualified to effectively reintroduce Father to the child who fears him?”

It isn’t uncommon for family court professionals to have personal experience with custody issues like alienation or abuse, experts say.

Mercer, the psychologist who studies reunification therapy, told the Sun Sentinel that she has encountered “a number of therapists who have some kind of parental alienation thing in their background,” often using it as part of their advertising on their websites.

“They often talk about it freely,” she said. “‘Look how knowledgeable I am because I have this.’ Their children may not have spoken to them for years, or they may have been alienated from their own parents.”

Still, multiple experts told the Sun Sentinel that they were surprised to hear that a therapist with a criminal history involving child abuse was able to get a license by the state of Florida and is permitted by the family court system to work with children.

“How does one get a license if she’s got an offense on her record?” said Susan Christiansen, a reunification therapist based in West Palm Beach. “That to me is kind of weird.”

But there is nothing in Florida law to prevent someone with Harkness’ background from getting a clinical social work license or working in family court.

Under Florida law, felony battery does not automatically disqualify someone from receiving a license from the Department of Health. Separate statutes prohibit people with Harkness’ criminal history from working with children and vulnerable adults across a variety of settings, but the law says nothing about family court.

Licensing experts say Harkness’ criminal history likely came up when she went before the Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy, and Mental Health Counseling, which oversees clinical social work licenses. The board has the discretion to reject licensing applicants because of their criminal histories, but exactly what was disclosed during Harkness’ hearing is unclear. The Department of Health did not respond to numerous requests for comment or fulfill a public records request for the meeting minutes regarding Harkness’ license or her license application by the time of publication.

The biggest question a licensing board considers when it comes to applicants with criminal histories, experts say, is whether the criminal offense is directly relevant to the practitioner’s ability to do their job.

“Is it a crime that relates to their practice?” said Megan Blancho, a former prosecutor for the Florida Department of Health who now represents professionals in licensing cases. “They can’t say ‘we don’t like your crimes,’ but they can say ‘this is a crime that relates to the practice or ability to practice your profession.’”

Violent crimes are always scrutinized by licensing boards, said Sara Bazzigaluppi, a Sarasota-based attorney who specializes in healthcare licensing. And domestic violence in particular is a “red flag.”

“That is a very big deal,” she said, adding that the difference between an adjudication-withheld finding compared to a finding of guilt “doesn’t matter” much in the licensing board’s eyes.

Still, licensing experts said they weren’t necessarily surprised that someone with Harkness’ criminal history was able to obtain a license.

Blancho said the contextual factors surrounding a child-abuse case could make the board more sympathetic, such as if the applicant was going through a high-conflict divorce.

“Maybe one moment in time doesn’t define the rest of their life and career,” she said. “Maybe they’re learning from that experience, or maybe it puts them in a better position to help others who are struggling in something like family court.”

Saponaro, the reunification therapist, said such a history would not necessarily disqualify a practitioner from the profession in her eyes but that it should be something they disclose to patients.

“You have to be honest,” she said. “There’s ways to normalize it that say, ‘I had this experience myself, it’s not this whole big thing.’ But I do think there is that potential of bias, when you yourself had that experience.”

These Florida mothers warned family courts about abuse. Now they can’t speak to their children

Mallory Smith only found out about Harkness’ history through word of mouth. When the Smith children eventually heard about it themselves from their mother, many of them said they felt betrayed.

“Why is someone with criminal charges specifically relating to domestic abuse able to be in a situation where they’re reunifying kids?” Anthony Smith, the oldest of the Smith children, told the Sun Sentinel. “It just feels corrupt. Someone who is in a position to impact other people’s lives should not be in that position.”

“For her to try to force us to talk to him, it just felt so backwards,” Ginny Smith said.

In 2023, Isabella Smith became the only child to testify in the custody case, telling the judge in a private Zoom call about the abuse she said she had witnessed, according to court records and her interview with the Sun Sentinel. About the same time, Harkness began to advocate for the Smith children to have increasing time with their father without supervision.

Armed with Harkness’ opinions, Timothy Smith unsuccessfully asked the court to incarcerate Mallory Smith or have her children removed from her custody. Instead, in 2024, the judge granted him 50-50 custody.

But their father would refuse to pick up two of the children, Isabella and her brother, according to court records and the children’s interviews with the Sun Sentinel. The guardian ad litem investigated and recommended that his timesharing be suspended. When they were sick, their father would often leave them in his truck for hours while he worked, the guardian wrote. In a subsequent report, she wrote that when she tried to visit the trailer where Timothy Smith lived, he threatened to call the police. Meanwhile, Ginny had been placed on a Baker Act hold with suicidal thoughts, “saying she was not going back to her Father’s house,” according to court records. She eventually joined her two older siblings, returning to live with her mother.

In August 2024, Mallory Smith had a call with Harkness after a judge ordered that they work to repair their relationship. During the call, which Smith recorded with Harkness’ consent, she confronted the therapist over her actions throughout the case and brought up the injunction between her and her daughter.

“I don’t think that it’s fair to have a professional that is literally trained to recognize abuse, whether it’s reported or not, to then deny it when it is reported and to have a bias,” the mother said during the call, according to a recording provided to the Sun Sentinel. “And maybe that’s because of the injunction against you by your own children that you’re unable to remain objective, but whatever the reason is, you have made it impossible for my children to truly have this be successful for that.”

“Mrs. Smith, I often take issue with the idea that children’s voice and opinion on the other parents should be the guiding factor,” Harkness replied. “That’s not the spirit of the law as I understand it, in the state of Florida or in this work.”

Mallory Smith’s therapist also asked Harkness if she would consider recusing herself from the case. But Harkness said the decision would be up to the court.

Since then, the reunification visits have ceased, though Harkness has not formally been removed from the case. Three of the children have turned 18 and aged out of family court. Ginny, who is 16, lives with Mallory Smith full time. And the two youngest children continue to split their time between their father and mother as the custody case continues.

For the Smith children who have moved past the custody battle and their reunification therapy with Harkness, the effects still linger.

“I’ll remember things and have to rethink it over,” Ginny said. “I’ll be like, ‘Wait, did that really happen? Was it really as bad as I thought it was?’ I have to tell myself that it really was what it was. I still have those kinds of issues today.”

Isabella feels similarly. Now an adult, she often still feels like speaking up won’t make a difference.

“It makes it so hard because you go about your daily life thinking, ‘Well, it doesn’t matter what I say because they won’t listen,’” she said. “At school, I see someone doing something and I try to tell someone, and I’ll just think well, no, I shouldn’t do that. They won’t believe me anyway.”

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