Who I Am

I'm Casie Fariello, a mother of three, a parent coach and facilitator, and someone whose family has lived—and continues to live—with a wide range of mental health, substance use, and behavioral challenges.

These have included eating disorders, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, substance use, gaming addiction, sex and love addiction, OCD, ADHD, severe anxiety disorder, social anxiety, treatment programs, and difficult decisions that rarely came with clear answers.

I've been there.

I know what it feels like to love your child with everything you have and still have no idea what to do next. I know what it is like to search for answers, question every decision, and wonder whether you are helping, hurting, holding on too tightly, or not doing enough.

I also know what happens when you become so focused on saving your child that you slowly lose touch with yourself.

For a long time, I believed that if I could find the right program, the right professional, the right words, or the right plan, I could make everything okay. I believed it was my responsibility to hold my family together and find the solution.

I made decisions from fear. I stepped in too quickly, held on too tightly, and tried to control outcomes that were never truly mine to control. Sometimes I said the wrong thing while desperately trying to say the right one.

I have also learned to apologize, repair, and listen differently.

I've learned that supporting our children does not mean rescuing them from every difficult experience. It means learning how to stay connected without losing ourselves, how to set boundaries without withdrawing our love, and how to let our children know that we believe they can do hard things.

And I am still learning.

My family's experiences led me to Partnership to End Addiction, where I became a Certified Parent Coach and Meeting Facilitator, as well as an LGBTQ+ Seminar Facilitator. I later became the Parent Liaison for the Young Adult Program at In Balance Continuum of Care.

At In Balance, I created a weekly support meeting for families whose children were in treatment. What began with 14 families eventually grew to include more than 350 current and alumni families.

That experience showed me how much parents need a place where they can speak honestly without being judged, fixed, or told what they should do.

I went on to co-found Other Parents Like Me, an online peer-support community for parents raising children with mental health and substance use challenges. As COO and later CEO, I helped build the organization from the ground up. I developed facilitator and Peer Parent training, created family-support programming, built partnerships, led teams, and helped shape a national community where parents could feel less alone.

I remain deeply proud of what we created and grateful to the families who trusted us with their stories.

Before this work became my calling, I spent more than 25 years as a flight attendant with Continental and United Airlines. Early in my career, I became a trainer responsible for helping flight attendants remain qualified, prepared, and focused on safety. I also worked behind the scenes with scheduling and curriculum development.

That career taught me how to remain grounded when things are uncertain, notice what is happening beneath the surface, and help people feel safe during difficult moments. Those same skills now shape how I support parents and families.

Peer support taught me the power of sitting with someone who can say, "I understand. I've been there too."

Over time, though, I realized I wanted to go deeper. I wanted to work more closely with parents who were ready to look not only at what was happening with their child, but also at the fear, grief, family patterns, and old wounds influencing how they responded.

I wanted to help parents trust themselves again, support their children without constantly rescuing them, and learn how to repair after difficult or disconnected moments.

KinThrive grew out of that realization.