Get to Know Kelly Carleton, Director of Partner Success for TAO by UpLift

Why are you passionate about supporting students in higher education? 

Being in college is such a special time in today’s world. Besides the obvious things like being in a time of transition and self-discovery, I’ve found students are so much more willing to seek and ask for support—something I don’t think I totally felt confident doing when I was in college.

It’s widespread knowledge at this point that many college students are struggling given the fact that mental health is one of the biggest reasons that people drop out, which can set the foundation of their career pathway and life trajectory. Of course, people can lead successful lives without a college degree but for many, the pathway forward could be disrupted by untreated mental health. Heartbreakingly, there’s also a high rate of suicidal ideation in this population.

I really admire our partners in college counseling centers. They do such an incredible job understanding students and meeting them where they’re at. They help students during this crucial and challenging moment—but it can be difficult to reach every student who needs support. They have the big responsibility of managing this microcosm of our diverse real world that is a college campus with, at times, limited resources. I really love having an opportunity to partner with those folks and support in making a difference there.

What is your background when it comes to mental health and higher education? 

I’ve been working in the field of partner success in the higher ed space for about five years. I work to support partners in implementing programs that will lead to success, including cultivating a collaborative relationship with campus stakeholders and integrating best practices to promote high utilization. My goal is to help partners see value in our partnership and to optimize our services.

Prior to that, I worked at an academic medical center in the Bronx where I designed, implemented, and disseminated large scale behavioral health integration programs to minimize care access gaps for underserved communities throughout New York City and State. I also have my masters in Clinical Psychology from Teachers College Columbia University.

How do you work with higher education institutions to implement plans that support student mental health?

First, my goal is to create a foundation of trust between my team and the partner. I find that it can be difficult to deliver on a program successfully if we do not have the buy-in and relationship to help guide our work. I aim to understand what makes them unique as a campus—their clinical model and structure, their student population, their institutional dynamics, competing priorities, and also just who they are generally as humans, like communication styles, what brings them joy, these kinds of things.

Then it’s important for me to understand what the unique goals are for this campus: What are their current areas for opportunity in expanding mental health resources? Who needs to be involved? What measures of success should we use to know whether we’ve done a good job? We need to make sure we have an identified ‘champion’ who can support a change management process of integrating a new vendor into an existing system, which may look different everywhere. This person aims to encourage adoption of wellness tools on campus and understands the dynamics of a campus ecosystem. 

Once we launch, we’ll monitor our metrics closely to tweak our approach in those early stages. Once we feel like we’ve stabilized, we will continue to have check-ins at least once a semester to make sure we’re continuing to reach our goals and to assess whether anything has changed in the partnership priorities.

What are some examples of how we fill the gaps for higher education partners? 

This really depends on the campus and how well resourced they are and/or where they are located. 

Staff at these counseling centers already support so many students. They do an incredible job with outreach and getting into students’ communities. At the end of the day, though, there are still untreated or underserved students who may not come into the counseling center for various reasons, or cannot easily get their needs met in the community, such as those in rural areas or those uninsured or on Medicaid, which we support. 

Some students also need longer term care, which is more than the traditional short-term model sometimes provided on campus. We can be a trusted referral resource for those students. We have a network of over 2,000 clinicians nationally, which enables a lot of choice in provider identity and specialty. In sum, our goal is to complement existing counseling center services to help extend their reach in the way that makes sense for that campus, and to do so in a collaborative and sustainable way.

What excites you about TAO by UpLift? 

There are so many dimensions to balance when it comes to students’ mental health. It's a challenge for schools to efficiently address the entire set of needs that show up on their campuses. Each student body is such a diverse group of people—a mini ecosystem of different backgrounds and identities and with that, a diversity of clinical needs. 

TAO by UpLift supports schools to address facets of that ecosystem. I’ve seen so many campuses in higher ed either experience budget limitations or prioritize budget for internal staff which is understandable. Our care and tools acknowledge that reality and are much more affordable and sustainable due to our ability to take insurance, and also flexible based on the counseling center’s philosophy of where they want a vendor to integrate into their clinical model. Also, the fact that our insurance coverage extends to Medicaid ensures we can support those often underserved students who may have difficulty connecting with support in the community.

I’m especially excited about the quality of our care and clinical services. We have clinical leadership who bring great experience to how we approach therapy and psychiatry. It’s thoughtful and measurement-based and has a robust quality assurance structure. Clinical quality paired with a strong student experience in their care is critical for these programs to work well, and I really believe in the system and structure that’s been built here at UpLift.

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