Ciara Fanlo, Founder and Mentor
I was once the teenager you’re worried about.
As a child, I was curious, introspective, and imaginative — an “old soul,” people said. But when I reached adolescence, I became unrecognizable to my parents and to myself.
I was overwhelmed, ashamed, and deeply dysregulated. I felt angry and painfully alone, incredibly sensitive and insecure beneath it all. I fought constantly with my parents, self-harmed, and was hospitalized. I didn’t have language for what was happening — only the fear that something was deeply wrong with me, and the sense that I couldn’t function the way everyone else seemed to.
After years of therapy and medication at home, I entered inpatient treatment, wilderness therapy, and eventually a therapeutic boarding school. Those years were the most painful of my life. It’s not a club anyone wants to belong to — but if you know, you know.
Today, I see those experiences as a training ground — they taught me how intense, vulnerable, and misunderstood adolescence can be from the inside. They shaped how I listen, how I slow down, and how seriously I take a young person’s inner world.
For years after leaving treatment, families found me quietly and organically — through word of mouth, through mutual connections, through someone saying, “You should talk to Ciara.” I spent countless hours talking with teens and parents, listening, helping them make sense of what was happening, long before I ever imagined this as a profession. At 25, I began doing this work full-time.
I work with teens and young adults — and with the parents who love them — because I believe this stage of life is a profound developmental passage.
Adolescence is full of intensity without the self-awareness to make sense of it.
Pressure to manage expectations without much agency or choice.
And the feeling of having lived lifetimes — without enough life yet to know what’s possible.
When this complexity is met with patience, attunement, and respect, profound transformation can happen.
If there is anything you take from reading this, please know I, with my whole heart, believe in your child's ability to triumph, to thrive, and to bravely become their true self. Sometimes, these painful, scary, and challenging years are the necessary initiations—the passages they must walk to step into who they are meant to be. I encourage you to hold faith in them, in yourself, and in the journey they are meant to take. It would be an honor to walk alongside you.
Background:
B.A. in English and Minor in Psychology from University of California, Santa Barbara
Wilderness Specialist at Project Avary, a summer camp and community for children of incarcerated parents
Responder with Concrn, compassionate response for behavioral and mental health crises in San Francisco
Worked at Meta (formerly Facebook), Pandora, and Recharge
Presented at Adventure Therapy Best Practices Conference, 2023, Wilderness Risk Management Conference, 2024, National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs, 2025
Published in The Guardian
Board member at Mile High Writer’s Workshop
Certificate in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Certificate in Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Trained in Vanessa Stone’s School for Transformational Facilitation
Trained in the Sholder Method
Erica Sung, Group Facilitator
As a teenager, I was studious, friendly, and on the outside, well-adjusted despite all odds. But I was struggling. I seemed to be doing all the “right” things but couldn’t shake a deep sense of shame and dread. This led to patterns of self-destruction to try feeling anything else, all while struggling to uphold the image.
It was through the connection of patient mentors who helped me hold my pain that I was able to come back to myself.
Both my personal and professional backgrounds have diverse frameworks to pull from. I have worked in a range of settings including nonprofits, inpatient eating disorders, drug diversion programs, and young adult mentorship. I tend to lean towards a blend of cognitive and somatic approaches and love finding creative ways to help connect the emotional dots.
Together we can tend to the parts that feel stuck with curiosity and compassion; to be seen and celebrated as you find momentum. And for when things get hard, to borrow belief.
Wherever you and your family are at on this path, I’d be glad to meet you there.
Background
MSW Candidate at Metropolitan State University of Denver
Medical Social Work Intern at HCA HealthOne Aurora
Grant Recipient through Health Resources and Services Administration
Consult at Spring Institute
Clinical Therapy Intern at University of Colorado Anschutz ARTS
Behavioral Health Counselor at Eating Recovery Center
Supervisor Support Specialist & Volunteer Coordinator at Family Promise Spokane
Outdoor Recreation Mentor at Community Covenant Church, Alaska
Trained in intercultural communication, trauma-informed care, and Brainspotting