Arizona social worker Alfred Dodini surrenders license over interference in custody matter, recordkeeping failures, etc.

Makemyburdenlight

2016-06-19 20:26:45

Thank you so much for writing this! I would have never known without it.

Alfred Dodini

2019-05-31 08:27:03

The reason I chose to surrender the license was becausethere were several accusations that were not supported by the evidence and I was not willing to sign a consent agreement admitting to ethical violations I had not committed. Contrary to ther allegation, a suicidal risk assessment was done on the father and a safety plan was successfully initiated. The only oversight was that I failed to have the client sign a copy of the safety plan. The client also acknowledged to me at the time the suicidal statement was made to his wife that he had used the same false threat of suicide to coerce his wife into marrying him 18 years before. He had no intention of self-harm and admitted that to me. The client requested me to write a letter to the court on his behalf and gave me verbal permission to do so. Again, the only oversight was forgetting to have him sign a release form. I could have "scrubbed the files" and had him sign a release form after the fact, but I felt that would not be honest, so I acknowledged I had forgotten to have him sign the form
There was clear evidence that the incident of child abuse claimed by the mother did not occur. The 12 year-old son and father were both present for the incident and both described the incident as the 16 year-old son trying to provoke his father by taking a swing at him and intentionally missing, hoping the father would respond by hitting the son in self-defense. The father did not hit his son, but wrestled him to the ground to prevent the son from further violence against the father. The 16 year-old son later confessed to me during his brother's final session that he had colluded with the mother to try and get the father arrested for child abuse in the hope that would guarantee the mother receiving full custody of both sons in the divorce in exchange for unlimited use of his cell phone and unsupervised use of the Internet.
The information regarding the history of schizophrenia in the ,mother's family was provided by her in her son's social history. I have over 15 hours of contact with the mother through her attending her son's sessions and taking much of the time to share information about herself, plus weekly phone calls from her sharing more details about the family. I observed several incidents of paranoid thinking and behaviors by the mother, which clearly indicated the presence of a mental health issue. All of this was documented before I shared my observations with the custody evaluators. The email letter to the mother occurred after I received a phone call from the father and his attorney after the final divorce decree was made, warning me that the mother had lied in her testimony during the divorce, accusing me of things I had not done and was planning to file complaints against me, the judge, and the custody evaluators in the case. The email was intended to encourage the mother to not pursue a complaint but to come and discuss her concerns with me and not to put her son through the additional embarrassment of having to testify in a hearing. The mother showed no concern for her son's welfare and certainly would not have been embarrassed by the board hearing about her bad behaviors. She had already exposed him to humiliation on three previous occasions that the son shared with me and that is why he cut-off any contact with his mother and refused to go on visits with her as a result. My intentions were to protect my client(the son) from further harm by his mother, but the hastily written email was construed as an effort at coercion rather than an effort to protect the son from further harm.
The second case involved a father who is a convicted felon (he participated in the kidnapping of a child and transporting the child across state lines) who had left a voice-mail threatening violence against me. The divorce court had ordered me to provide a report to the court on the childrens' progress in therapy and that the information NOT be provided to either of the parents. I tried to contact the court for clarification as to whether the parents were allowed access to the clients' records but received no reply. I was willing to release the records to the parents as soon as the court approved it and told the father as much.
The licensing board was investigated by the state legislature in 2012 and over 200 complaints made by therapists against the executive director, board members, and some investigators were disclosed. None of the complaints have ever been investigated by the governor's office as they should have been. The health and human services committee of the legislature seriously considered unfunding and disbanding the agency, but instead replaced the executive director, all the board members, and two investigators--one of which had conducted the investigation of my case. When I heard about the disciplinary actions by the legislature, I contacted the co-chair of the committee who encouraged me to contact the new board director about getting my license restored. I met with the new board in 2017 and they agreed to restore my licensure after a brief period (12 months) of supervised probation. My AZ license is active and has no restrictions as of June, 2019.