About Katey
Nearly three decades in schools. Ten years taking the phone calls nobody else was taking.
The job nobody had a name for
I honestly don't remember the first call. It was probably a parent looking for a therapist for a kid who was anxious, or depressed, or saying things that scared them.
I kept picking up because I love my community, and because this comes easily to me. I've met so many talented, genuinely good professionals over the years that pointing a family to the right one is the easy part.
Call it five families a week. Keep that up for a decade, alongside a full-time job, and you stop counting.
For most of those years the job didn't have a name. Around here I was just "that Katey lady." Someone would say: call that Katey lady, she'll know what to do.
A parent who's just found something on their kid's phone. A mother whose daughter's photo is being passed around a school. A dad who doesn't know whether what he's looking at is a phase or an emergency. They're not calling a therapist, because it isn't therapy yet. They're not calling the police, because they don't know if a crime has happened. They're often not calling the school, because sometimes the school is the problem.
I did that for free for a decade. I'm still doing it. I've just finally given it a name.
The case that changed everything
There was a moment this stopped being a side thing.
A student came into my office with her mom, who handed me an iPad and said, "I don't know what's going on, but something is." One look and I knew: an adult had been talking to her daughter in a way no adult should. I called the police that day. He went to prison.
That's when I left school administration. Whatever this job was, I needed to do it with both hands.
People sometimes ask why I'm charging now, after years of doing it for free. The honest answer: I'm finally formalizing what I've been doing all along. This is my new era. And yes, I'm putting four kids through college at once. That has something to do with it too.
When someone at a party asks what I do, I laugh and say, "How long do you have?" The short version: I'm a family navigator. I help families through tough situations, online, in person, and everywhere in between. It's hard to explain because I sort of made up the job.
Where this comes from
I spent nearly three decades in schools: as a secondary school teacher, a guidance counselor, and a school administrator.
That range matters more than the number. I taught the kids. I counseled them when it fell apart. Then I sat on the other side of the desk as an administrator and saw how the system actually responds when a family is in trouble: what it can do, what it won't do, and where it quietly drops people.
What I kept running into was a gap. School handles academics. Therapists handle clinical mental health. Nobody was handling the space in between: the digital, social, emotional mess where most families actually live.
So I built a way to work in that gap.
- Director of Community Outreach for a leading school safety app
- Previously Executive Director of the Gurian Institute, a renowned teacher and parent training institute
- Board contributor on media and technology responsibility
- Community initiatives in youth suicide prevention and mental health advocacy
- Lives in Queen Creek, Arizona, with her family
What I actually think
It's crucial that we walk alongside our kids, not against them, in the digital world.
Most parenting advice about technology is useless
It's either "take the phone away" or "kids will be kids." Neither is a plan.
Fear doesn't work, and it costs you
Scare a kid and they don't get safer. They get better at hiding. Every scare-tactics assembly buys short-term compliance and spends long-term trust.
Your relationship is the safety feature
No filter catches what your kid hides from you. A child who'll tell you the hard thing is better protected than a child with every tool installed.
Kids are not the problem
They were handed the most sophisticated persuasion technology ever built and told to manage it themselves. Most are doing better than we'd have done.
In the press
Esquire · 12 News · KTAR News · AZFamily · Arcadia News · TEDx
Podcasts: Wellness Mama · PrepTalks · On Boys
Queen Creek, and everywhere else
I live in Queen Creek and most of my in-person work happens across the East Valley: Gilbert, Mesa, Chandler. Local schools, Rotary, community groups, parent nights in cafeterias on Tuesday evenings.
I also work with families nationwide, virtually, and speak at schools and conferences across the country.
The local work keeps me honest. It's hard to theorize about what parents are dealing with when you're standing in a school cafeteria answering their questions.
When I'm not working, I'm running, hiking, or somewhere near the ocean with my family.