Associates in Professional Counseling

Apr 2024

Whitney McDaniel is unethical and biased in the role of parenting coordinator. She will side with the parent who has the money to pay her. She repeatedly breaks her own contract, ignores dozens of emails and phone calls, including those for medical and educational care for my child. She goes outside the scope of Illinois Rule 909 regarding responsibilities for parenting coordinators. If your local circuit court does not have rules and regulations set up, she will do whatever she wants. She has harmed my relationship with my children's sports center, school district, and medical team for false information she has told them. She will threaten them that she is "court appointed" and those that don't know enough, will fall for that without documentation of what her role is and the history of contact between the parents. Positive reviews on Google have the exact same wording from an email she sent me. She has been reported for state laws she has violated repeatedly. If you do not have the schedule to immediately meet with her, she charges you what she would have charged for an in-person or virtual meeting and claims it is for emails. The emails she does return contain gaslighting to the extreme. She will also pick and choose what she responds to in an email, and then blame you when she skips over the very top bulleted item you send her. This also includes refusing to answer questions about invoicing. Do your research to find similar situations in the 23rd and 18th Judicial Court areas. You will find others for support. I would give 0 stars.

Jan 2024

Whitney McDaniel was appointed to my husband's case in spring of 2023. My husband's first wife (who has a history of mental illness and who was knowingly abandoned by her own father) fired the "silver bullet" when she initiated the divorce. She falsely obtained an order of protection and tried to take their 2 children. He fought back and won joint custody and joint decision-making and worked hard to rebuild healthy, loving relationships with both kids. He met me a few years later when the kids were both teens. He thought his son would have a harder time with his remarriage, but actually his daughter did. Her mother unlawfully removed her from his home just before our wedding, and his daughter has been refusing to see him or speak to him since (outside of school events or a therapist's office). Whitney's role was "reunification therapist." She met with my husband and his alienated daughter (a young teen) for 9 months, achieving no progress in that time, setting up only one out-of-office visit toward the end of that time (at my husband's request to see his daughter on a special occasion), and ignoring all evidence we presented of the mother's alienating tactics. Whitney failed to provide a treatment plan or to require any specific action of any involved parties. She spent session time just listening to my stepdaughter's complaints about her father. She read a transcript we submitted to her of the judicial finding that my husband did nothing wrong the night the mother "protectively" abducted the daughter from her father's home (just before our wedding), and that the mother had violated the father's parenting time, and Whitney still blamed my husband for his daughter's refusal to see him or talk with him. She allowed the mother to continuously portray appropriate loving discipline as "abuse." She engaged in biased, unilateral, unethical communications with the mother. She smiled at us to our face and expressed willingness to provide the coaching my husband requested (for better interactions with his daughter), and then Whitney criticized us behind our backs to other parties. Finally, 9 months after the start of therapy, when we respectfully pointed out to her in an email that an accurate diagnosis informs proper treatment, she stopped reunification therapy altogether and told the court that my husband needed to see an individual therapist to understand what he had done to cause his daughter to feel unsafe and to shun a relationship with him. She never resumed efforts at reunification, even when my husband complied with the inappropriate recommendation for individual counseling. Instead, she told the mother that my husband and I should have to pay 100% the cost of a forensic custody evaluation (which the judge then ordered), and she told the evaluator my husband is a wife and child abuser. She recently rendered an opinion to the mother in writing that empowered her to violate joint decision-making. "This is not a dad issue," Whitney wrote, when the mother violated the parenting plan and arranged for non-emergent healthcare without informing the father, or considering his preference in provider, or respecting his Christian beliefs. Whitney McDaniel engaged in serious ethical breaches and deeply harmed our family (my stepdaughter has now been alienated for over 2 years). If Jesus could say from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," we choose to say that too of Whitney. May God humble her arrogance, open her eyes to truth, transform her heart, and gift her with a true ability to help troubled families.

Mar 2023

Whitney McDaniel works at the Naperville/Plainfield Offices. I urge you to stay away from her; she will find "abuse" where there is none, in custody matters. She does not work in the best interest of the child/children. Rather, she works in the best interest of ONE of the parents. She will meet with only one parent, and she will coerce the child/children to fit her narrative. She was reported to the State of Illinois for unethical practices. She had to retake hours of ethics (classes) again. For any family court related cases, take your business elsewhere and do your homework. Make sure that the therapist is honest and upholds the "best interest of the child/children!" Do not hire this therapist, look at her Google reviews too.