Ms. Smith has worked extensively with children and adolescents in outpatient, inpatient and group home settings. Since 2003, she has conducted front-line forensic interviews and evaluations of suspected child abuse victims, as well as witness preparation and trauma-focused therapies at the Met CAC (formerly known as the Assessment & Resource Center ), the Children’s Advocacy Center based in Columbia. Ms. Smith also maintains an active private practice addressing service needs beyond the scope of the Met CAC. She is especially relied upon in the Midlands of South Carolina for her skills with divorced parents in high conflict. Ms. Smith provides co-parenting assistance, parent coordination and development of parenting plans tailored to meet the needs of individual families.
Ms. Smith trains across disciplines on evidence-based interventions with maltreated children, complex trauma in children and adolescents and best practice forensic interviewing techniques. She has presented on interviewing child victims of sexual exploitation at international conferences in Africa, Central America and Thailand with the FBI and the US Department of Justice. Ms. Smith contributed to a national project on exploited American youth for the Department of Justice in collaboration with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. In 2017, she was honored with the Distinguished Humanitarian Award at the South Carolina Victims’ Rights Week conference.
Finally, Ms. Smith works with Family Bridges for Alienated Children (FBAC), conducting workshops for severely alienated children and their left-behind parents when reunification is ordered by the court.