About Us

Walk-In Counseling Center was founded by a group of psychologists in 1969, in response to the unmet need for accessible mental health services in the Twin Cities. We incorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in 1971.

For the past 50 years we have provided free mental health counseling to help thousands of people address issues of depression, anxiety, chemical abuse/dependency, trauma, domestic violence and a variety of other emotional and interpersonal concerns.

Our mission is to provide free, easily accessible mental health counseling to people with urgent needs and few service options. Our overarching goal is to help people stabilize during a time of crisis and resolve problems before they become severe.

We achieve this goal by involving approximately 180 volunteer mental health clinicians each year who provide the services. We estimate the value of our volunteer clinic services at more than $26 million over the past 50 years.

We are, to our knowledge, the only walk-in mental health service in the world (!) staffed entirely by volunteer clinicians.

In 2017 (we'll soon have statistics for 2018) we…

Served 2,648 individuals: men, women, and young people (unduplicated)
Provided 6,853 free formal counseling sessions
Engaged 165 volunteer counselors, team consultants and receptionists who gave, very conservatively, 18,000 hours of service (e.g., counseling, case consultation, outreach and administrative assistance) valued at over $1,115,000.

Click here to read the 2017 Walk-In Overview.