Casa Tendo

Consulting and training

We do this work every day. We can help you do it too.

Casa Tendo offers consulting and training to organizations serving people in recovery, in crisis, and in the gaps between systems. Everything we teach, we practice, in our own programs, with our own participants.

We work with community clinics and treatment providers, county and city agencies, nonprofits, faith communities, and housing and shelter programs.

Trauma-informed care

Assessment and implementation

Most organizations say they're trauma-informed. Fewer have changed how the front desk works, how intake forms read, or how staff respond when someone arrives angry. We help close that gap.

  • Organizational assessment
  • Staff and volunteer training
  • Policy and environment review
  • Follow-up support through the change

Program design

Concept to launch

Built for programs that have to survive their first year, not just get funded for it.

  • Logic models and service design
  • Staffing structure and workflow
  • Outcome measures and evaluation
  • The funding case to support it

Behavioral health training

Clinical and non-clinical staff

Written for the people actually in the room, whatever their credential.

  • Substance use and co-occurring conditions
  • Harm reduction in practice
  • De-escalation and crisis response
  • Boundaries and staff sustainability

Grant writing

Proposals and funder strategy

Funders don't turn programs down for lack of heart. They turn them down because the need statement doesn't connect to the budget, or the outcomes can't be measured, or the proposal answers a question nobody asked.

  • Proposal writing and editing
  • Needs statements and logic models
  • Budgets and budget narratives
  • Funder research and prospect fit
  • Reporting and renewal support

Health equity

Who your services reach

An honest look at who your services reach, who they don't, and why. We show you where people fall out of your process and what to change.

  • Access and utilization review
  • Drop-off analysis across the intake path
  • Practical recommendations, ranked by effort

Leadership support

Directors and boards

Coaching for executive directors and program leaders, and support through the harder stretches.

  • Executive and program leader coaching
  • Board development and governance
  • Growth, restructuring, and crisis

How it works

A conversation first, then a scope.

The first call

Thirty minutes, no cost

We talk about what you're facing. No proposal, no pitch deck, no obligation.

A scoped proposal

Sized to the work

Anything from a single training session to a multi-month implementation partnership, with the shape and cost set out plainly.

Pricing

Sliding scale available

Set by scope, with sliding-scale rates for small and grassroots organizations. All proceeds support Casa Tendo's programs, so when you hire us, you fund the work directly.

Who you'll work with

Dr. Emily Nsubuga, DrPH, MPH

Dr. Emily Nsubuga, founder and executive director of Casa Tendo

Emily founded Casa Tendo and serves as its Executive Director. She has spent her career inside the systems meant to catch people: group homes, shelters, mental health programs, treatment centers. She started on the floor, sitting with people on their hardest nights, and worked her way up to leading organizations.

That range is what she brings to consulting. Casa Tendo was built around a single design question. What would it take for the door to open the first time someone knocks? That is the question she brings to other organizations' programs.

Meet the rest of the team

Jordan Smith, Ph.D.

Jordan Smith, President of Casa Tendo

Jordan is Board Chair and President of Casa Tendo. He is Executive Director of The Center for Healthy Masculinity, working at the cutting edge of men's mental health and addiction recovery, and he leads The ABK Way Foundation, which funds kindness programs worldwide through micro grants.

He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from UCLA and has held professorships at CSU Long Beach, UC Riverside, Pepperdine, and Josai International University in Japan, building more than a hundred courses across literature, psychology, and international administration. He has produced four documentaries for BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4.

He brings the parts of this work that are easy to underrate. How to hold a room. How to build a curriculum people remember rather than endure. And how to tell an organisation's story so that the right people hear it.

Start with a conversation.