Headspace partners with Uwill to expand mental health offerings to students

Uwill, the mental health platform for colleges and students, announced it has partnered with digital mental health company Headspace to expand its Urise wellness offerings to include the direct-to-consumer platform. 

The Boston-based company partners with colleges to offer students on-demand virtual access to licensed therapists and providers trained in crisis counseling. Students can also attend online wellness events through the company’s mental health and wellness app. 

Uwill, founded in 2020, will integrate Headspace into its on-demand therapy offerings, dubbed Urise, which provides users with meditation, yoga, mindfulness and other wellness offerings. 

“At Uwill, access, engagement, satisfaction and outcomes mean a lot. We selected Headspace because it was one of the few applications with utilization similar to our proprietary wellness programming and therapy,” Michael London, founder and CEO of UWill, told MobiHealthNews in an email.

Headspace SVP of partnerships, Katie DiPerna, told MobiHealthNews the partnership will help the direct-to-consumer company support students, faculty and staff managing mental health challenges. 

“By engaging with mental health and wellness content, members of higher education campuses can take steps to improve their mental wellness and alleviate feelings of stress anxiety, depression and burnout. We are thrilled to be partnering with Uwill, as it is the leading mental health and wellness solution for colleges and students,” DiPerna said. 

Uwill claims to serve more than two million students at 300 colleges in the U.S. and 40 countries. 

THE LARGER TREND

Last year, Uwill completed a $30 million Series A funding round and announced a deal with the state of New Jersey to offer college students free 24/7 access to Uwill’s virtual mental health services. 

In 2020, the company secured a $3.25 million investment led by rapper Darryl McDaniels of Run-DMC. A year later, it completed its angel funding round of $5.2 million. 

Earlier this year, Uwill announced its acquisition of Christie Campus Health, which provides counseling and mental health and wellness support to 750,000 students across more than 100 colleges. 

Michigan-based Oakland University, Ohio-based Oberlin College & Conservatory and the State University of New York (SUNY) also announced the institutions would offer their students free access to Uwill’s mental health platform.