Client Onboarding and Intake Coordination
Nicole guides each person through their first steps with the practice, from the initial inquiry to their first session. She explains what intake involves, answers questions about services and formats, and helps match each client with the therapist and offering that best fit their needs.
Practice Operations and Systems
Nicole oversees the systems that keep care running smoothly across both locations, including scheduling, communication, and coordination between clinical and support staff. Her focus is making sure every part of the practice works together so clients experience one consistent standard of care.
Staff Training and Culture
Drawing on years of building and training teams in residential treatment, Nicole helps shape how the practice shows up for clients day to day. She supports a culture where attention to detail and care for one another are part of how the work gets done.
Client Events and Practice Environment
Nicole is behind the small, deliberate touches that make Higher Ground feel welcoming, from practice events and gatherings to the look and feel of each space. She makes sure every room a client walks into feels calm, considered, and ready for them.
High-Touch Client Care
Director of Client Experience
Nicole Santulli-Rivera
Your experience matters.
Nicole is often a client's first point of contact in our practice.
Nicole is a steady resource throughout each client's journey. She makes sure care at Higher Ground feels considered from the very first call, and that nothing about beginning therapy is left for a client to figure out alone.
She knows every therapist, service, and location well enough to help each person find the right fit quickly. Starting therapy can feel confusing, from what intake involves to what happens first, and Nicole makes sure none of it stays a mystery. She is also behind the small, deliberate touches, from practice events to the feel of each space, that make Higher Ground a place people are glad to return to.
At Higher Ground, Nicole brings that instinct to the client experience from start to finish. She is often a client's first point of contact with the practice and remains a steady one throughout, guiding initial inquiries and staying reachable by phone, text, or email. For people whose lives are already full, reaching the practice should be the easy part.
People are usually exhausted by the time they call us. My job is to make that first conversation feel like someone already thought it through, so they don't have to.
Nicole Santulli-Rivera
Professional Experience
Nicole spent five years as Operations Manager for a large adolescent residential treatment program in Woodbury. Her role was making sure every department, from clinical and nursing to support staff, added up to one seamless experience for the young people living there. She built the systems behind it: staffing, training, and the hundred small details that decide whether a place feels safe. The program grew substantially during her tenure, and its standard of care rose with it.
Her distinction was always in the details. She paid attention to the things that make a place feel like home: marking milestones, noticing what a hard day needed, making sure the people doing the caring were cared for too. She trained her teams to hold that same standard in practice as much as in policy.
