For Colleges
Partner With Us
The Wily Network seeks to partner with public and private four-year residential colleges and universities in the Greater Boston area to provide a support system for students navigating college independently. Our arrangements with partner colleges reflect a mutual commitment to student success.
How We Work
Every college is different, and The Wily Network crafts individualized agreements with each Partner Institution based on the school’s needs, goals, and resources.
Partner Institutions Identify prospective Wily Scholars
The students we work with are typically not inclined to identify themselves or reach out for help, which makes it difficult for schools to recognize how many students on their campus fit the Wily profile. The Wily team will assist each institution in identifying potential Wily Scholars.
The Wily Network Coach on your campus
The Wily Scholars at your school will share a clinical coach, or coaches, who will provide them with a level of day-to-day support beyond what existing campus resources can offer, while also helping them access and navigate the resources available to them on campus. Partner schools provide coaches with a place to work on campus, access to campus internet, and a liaison to serve as a point person for referrals and communications. Liaisons also convene key college personnel to introduce Wily to the broader campus community.
Other ways to partner with Wily
We conduct trauma training and presentations to a variety of departments on campus. This facilitates constructive and supportive interactions between campus offices and Wily Scholars. From the Career Center to the Dean’s Office, we can help your staff feel confident working with students managing complicated circumstances.
To learn more about partnering with us, please reach out to Judi Alperin King, Executive Director.
Partnerships are established based on the availability of staff and funding.
The Coaching Relationship
Wily Clinical Coaches are graduate-level clinicians with experience providing trauma sensitive care. Though coaches are guided by their backgrounds as trained therapists, they do not provide therapy to students. The coaching relationship is grounded in techniques adopted from a nationally recognized coaching model. Every coach engages in regular training related to this work, including but not limited to:
- Fostering Success Coach Training and Certification Program
- Suicide assessment & safety planning
- Trauma/adolescent neuroscience
- Sexual orientation and gender identity in coaching
- Race and social identity in coaching
The Wily Network Commitment
We will always:
- Abide by and stay up to date with all rules, procedures and expectations of the university.
- Facilitate connection between students and on-campus programs and resources.
- Provide emotional support to students and refer students to comprehensive mental health services as needed.
- Work with students one-on-one using a trauma-sensitive model to identify areas of growth within academics, housing, physical health and personal wellness, social connectedness, personal identity, life skills and campus living, and finances.
Partner Institutions
Institutions in our Pack
Every school with a Wily Scholar or alum is part of our pack.
At this time, The Wily Network works with students whose college campuses are less than a 45 minute drive from Boston.
Why the Wily Approach?
Comprehensive college support programs began in the late 1990s and have proven successful at colleges and universities in 25 states. The Wily Network has brought this highly effective movement to Greater Boston, and replicates the best practices from programs around the country. We are now one of the largest programs in the nation.
We collaborated on program development with the University of Michigan’s nationally recognized Blavin Scholars Program, and we continue to share resources with them. We also partner with the Center for Fostering Success at Western Michigan University, home to one of the largest programs for students who have aged out of the foster care system. Wily makes use of the Center for Fostering Success’ services for our paid supervision and training, as well as frequent consultation.
We are continually learning from our organizational partners, and we regularly assess and adjust our services in order to meet national best practice standards.
