Skip to Main Content

Q&A: ALACRITY Center Kate Wolitzky-Taylor on Center’s Year 3 progress and next steps

Logo reads "UCLA Depression Grand Challenge over blue gradient.

The UCLA STAND for Community Colleges Innovation Center, also known as the UCLA ALACRITY Center, completed its third year of research activities in March 2025 with the continuation notice arriving at UCLA in June.

The Center's research activities comprise four primary projects optimizing the effectiveness and implementation of the STAND system of care in a community college student population. Since 2022, researchers have been conducting research on the STAND program at East Los Angeles College.

In this recent interview, ALACRITY Center Co-Director Kate Wolitzky-Taylor, PhD, outlines recent areas of emphasis, accomplishments, and next steps. 

How would you describe the focus of the work conducted within the ALACRITY Center?

A central goal of our work at the ALACRITY Center is to understand how the STAND system of care can be best implemented and disseminated among traditionally under-served community college student populations. The need is especially urgent at community colleges, where depression and anxiety are common and access to mental health resources is often limited.  We are studying uptake, engagement, clinical outcomes and conditions required for long-term sustainability.

Through the Center, we also are able to focus on trainee engagement and mentorship through speaker events, trainings, and support for undergraduate and graduate trainees, postdoctoral fellows, and early-career investigators. 

What has excited you most over the past year?

An exciting development in Year 3 was our deployment of Spanish-language assessments and digital mental health materials. We also enhanced our clinical training library, digitizing simplified, and standardized clinician training materials that were developed in year 2. 

I also was excited to see the planning efforts for new uptake and engagement interventions that are being implemented in Year 4 including a new navigator program and a fotonovela. 

I especially have been encouraged by the progress of pilot projects led by early-career investigators. Many of these studies are now completed or nearing completion and their research questions focus importantly on recruitment and retention strategies. We also collaborated with Co-Investigator Daniel Eisenberg to increase participation of Los Angeles County community colleges responding to the Healthy Minds which included questions specific to gaps in services that a program like STAND might address.

What are Center priorities for Year 4?

In Year 4, we plan to: 

  • Implement the new navigator and fotonovela interventions, to explore their effectiveness in increasing uptake and engagement.
  • Examine how decision-making tools that assign students to different levels of care capture social determinants
  • Finalize reimagination and migration of STAND content into a new more mobile-friendly platform.
  • Encourage other California community colleges to respond to the Healthy Minds Survey including: Antelope Valley College, Compton College, East Los Angeles College, El Camino College, Imperial Valley College, Los Angeles City College, and Santa Monica College.

 

The UCLA STAND for Community Colleges Innovation Center was established in 2022 with funding from the National Institute of Mental Health as one of 14 NIMH Advanced Laboratories for Accelerating the Reach and Impact of Treatments for Youth and Adults with Mental Illness (ALACRITY) Research Centers. It is led by Michelle Craske, PhD, distinguished professor of psychology and of psychiatry & biobehavioral sciences, and Kate Wolitzky-Taylor, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences.

The research undertaken within the Center aims to optimize the effectiveness and implementation the STAND model in a low-income, diverse community college student population, and explore pathways for sustainability and spread to other community colleges. In addition to the research projects, center activities include stakeholder engagement, training, mentorship and continually working to better understand the needs of California community colleges and their communities.