New Beginnings Family Services

"Our little one received services from Karen McCall at New Beginnings Family Services for a little over a year. Ever since the beginning of services, Karen billed our insurance company for "individual sessions" for our little one. Karen was also well-aware that we were in the middle of a child custody case and her testimony as well as her notes may be needed in court. I could write a book on Karen McCall. As someone who has experience in the field, I could not believe the overall lack of therapeutic knowledge, poor note taking, and extreme lack of ethical boundaries that she had. Regarding lack of therapeutic knowledge - over the course of a year, she built little to no rapport with our little one and often stated "he always says I don't know" but never took that as a sign that she needs to increase her interactions with him and how she plays with him instead of constantly conversing with the adults in the room. Regarding poor note taking - her notes did not reflect any specific format and she never went over any tx plans, tx plan updates, or progress with us. Her notes were so terrible and unreflective of what we reported to her that that our lawyer advised us to not even submit them as evidence in court. Regarding the extreme lack of ethical boundaries - after seeing myself, my fiancé, and our little one for almost a year and billing our insurance company for "individual sessions" for our little one, when our little ones biological mother decided to finally reach out to her and become involved in sessions (coincidentally one month before custody trial) Karen made our little ones biological mother her client, then began separately billing her insurance company as "individual sessions" for his biological mother! She never saw our little one with his biological mother for one of HIS sessions, yet testified in court that she did! So after court, we were stuck with Karen being our little ones primary therapist, that was providing not only individual sessions for our little one and listening to the struggles he has had between households (that myself, my fiancé, and our little one reported to her), she was also completing INDIVIDUAL SESSIONS with his biological mother and made his biological mother her client! The most upsetting part of it all, is that throughout the entire time Karen provided us services, she never had ONE individual session with his biological father. Karen lost sight of who the client actually was, which should have only been our little one due to ethical boundaries. We have since switched therapists and are very happy with our decision. It is abundantly clear that Karen needs direct supervision regarding note taking and ethical boundaries, among a multitude of other things. If you are unfortunate enough to have to deal with this therapist in the midst of a custody case like we were, I would highly recommend finding someone who is more knowledgeable about the field, confident in their work, and who has actually taken and passed exams to receive their social work license instead of being "grandfathered" in."