Our people
The people you'll actually talk to.
No stock photography, no rotating pool. You'll know your clinician's name and face before your first session, and you'll keep the same one.
Founder
Dr. Emily Nsubuga
DrPH, MPH
I started Casa Tendo because of a pattern I couldn't stop seeing.
I've spent my career inside the systems meant to catch people: group homes, shelters, mental health programs, and treatment centers. I started on the floor, sitting with people on their hardest nights, and worked my way up to leading organizations. At every level, I watched the same moment repeat. Someone finally gets ready to ask for help, and the system answers with a waitlist, another form, the wrong insurance, or a bed that opens two weeks too late.
Readiness doesn't wait two weeks. I've seen what it costs when it isn't met.
Casa Tendo is what I built instead.
The name holds the philosophy. Casa means home. Tendo means gratitude.
Home is the foundation: care that's there when you reach for it, that knows your name, and that keeps a steady rhythm through the week whether you're having a good one or not.
Gratitude is what grows inside that home. Not the greeting-card kind, but the kind that changes people. The gratitude you feel when a door opens the first time you knock. The gratitude that comes from being seen, remembered, and welcomed back. And the gratitude that, practiced day after day, slowly turns surviving into living.
Every part of Casa Tendo, from therapy and coaching to art hour and the people who notice when you don't show up, is designed to be worthy of that gratitude while helping you discover what was already worth holding onto in your own life.
"I've watched too many people almost get help. Casa Tendo is my thank you to everyone who ever opened a door for me, built so it opens the first time you knock."
Co-Founder
Kyle Johnson
Co-Founder & Head of Integrative Wellness and Culinary Arts
Kyle Johnson is a chef and community activist from Long Beach, California. From the start of his professional career, he has been on a journey to share the experience of his plant based lifestyle, and the mental and physical healing it made possible, with the communities he grew up in and around.
After building deep connections in the agricultural and culinary worlds through managing local farmers markets, Kyle founded the nonprofit Market LOVr in 2015. Serving Long Beach, Compton, and South Central Los Angeles, Market LOVr has brought donation based pop ups, free cooking demonstrations, and basic cooking skills classes to K through 12 students, all centered on nutrition education that empowers people to make healthy choices with whatever they have.
That work led Kyle into treatment settings, where he served as head chef in residential recovery centers. There he saw up close what he had always believed: that food is one of the first places healing shows up. A regular mealtime becomes structure. A shared table becomes community. Learning to cook for yourself becomes proof that you can care for yourself. Cooking for people in their earliest, hardest days of recovery shaped how he thinks about nourishment as treatment, not an afterthought to it.
At Casa Tendo, Kyle leads integrative wellness and culinary arts, weaving food, movement, and daily rhythm into the recovery experience, so that gratitude has something on the table to point to.
Clinical team
Therapy and psychiatry.
Our clinicians practice under California licensure and supervision.
Beckett Richards, AMFT
Clinical Director
Beckett Richards, AMFT #143687, is Clinical Director at Casa Tendo. Beckett brings 10 years of experience across detox, residential, PHP, and IOP levels of care, combining direct clinical practice with operational leadership in utilization review, admissions, level-of-care determinations, and program development.
Clinically, Beckett specializes in trauma and complex PTSD, substance use and co-occurring disorders, and personality disorders, with a particular focus on harm reduction and LGBTQIA+ affirming care. His approach integrates Internal Family Systems (IFS), EMDR, and Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy, working within a psycholytic model to help clients access deeper states of healing and self-understanding.
On the operations side, Beckett has led utilization review and medical necessity documentation across multiple levels of care, managed admissions and clinical case reviews, and built and overseen clinical programming for residential treatment settings, experience that informs how he leads teams and structures care at Casa Tendo.
Beckett holds a Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University Los Angeles, a Certificate in Drug and Alcohol Counseling from UCLA Extension, and a Certified Professional Coach (CPC) credential. He is a Level 1 IFS Institute therapist, EMDR-trained, and a Certified Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy Provider through Journey Clinical, practicing under the supervision of Grace Walker, LMFT.
Coaches & facilitators
Coaching and groups.
A word on the difference
Coaches are certified, not licensed. They don't diagnose or treat conditions, and coaching isn't a substitute for clinical care. We list them separately so the line stays clear — and because plenty of people work with both.
Colin Taschler, RADT-I
Recovery coach & client advocate
Colin Taschler is a client advocate and recovery professional with a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication (Public Relations) and a Minor in Sociology from Loyola University New Orleans. He has completed his Substance Use Disorder Counseling Program, holds an active RADT-I credential, and is passionate about helping individuals navigate recovery, mental health, and complex systems of care.
Blending experience in behavioral healthcare, hospitality, financial services, and public relations, Colin specializes in client advocacy, care coordination, and program operations. His work is grounded in helping people feel heard, supported, and empowered while building systems of care that are compassionate, ethical, and responsive to the people they serve.
Known for his calm presence, authentic leadership, and collaborative approach, Colin believes that when empathy and thoughtful systems work hand in hand, lasting change becomes possible. In addition to his professional work, he volunteers as a facilitator with the LGBT Center's Trans Lounge Program, supporting connection and peer support within the community.
Parin Kaba, MPP
Life coach
Parin is a Life Coach dedicated to helping individuals navigate life's challenges with clarity, confidence, and purpose. Drawing on her professional experience working with vulnerable populations, she brings a compassionate, client-centered approach to supporting individuals through periods of transition, personal growth, and change. By combining empathy with practical strategies and accountability, Parin empowers her clients to overcome obstacles, build resilience, and create meaningful, lasting transformation.