History of Walk-In Counseling Clinic

The Beginning: Free Counseling Takes Root

It was an era of conflict over civil rights and the Vietnam War — a generation demanding that institutions do a better job of serving people. Like the founders of free clinics, hotlines, runaway houses, and counseling centers across the country, WICC's founders came out of the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. 

In the winter of 1969, psychologists from the University of Minnesota and the local community gathered as Psychologists for Social Action to talk about what was broken — and what they could actually do about it. One answer was Walk-In Counseling Center (WICC): a place where psychologists could volunteer their time and give people free, confidential counseling without the hoops to jump through that usually come with it. WICC opened its doors in May 1969. 

A group of pediatricians had started something similar the fall before — the Teenage Medical Service, a free medical clinic for teenagers. WICC began running clinics out of the house that would become its longtime home, right alongside them. Both organizations were part of something bigger: the free clinic movement, built on the belief that healthcare is a right, not a privilege. 

As word spread, the Teenage Medical Service moved next door, and WICC opened its doors to people of every age — not just the young people who'd first felt alienated enough to walk in. WICC and the Teenage Medical Service together secured a two-year grant from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), which let WICC hire its first paid staff. 

Most free clinics around the country were medical clinics that offered some counseling on the side. WICC was one of the few built around mental health alone. This era, and the role of what became known as alternative services, is described in The Alternative Services: Their Role in Mental Health (Glasscote et al., 1975), which includes a chapter on WICC. 

WICC was part of the national conversation about alienated youth, helping shape what meaningful services for young people could look like — and helped shape the response to drug abuse in those same early years, including 1972 testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee on youth crisis services and consultation with the White House's Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention. 

In 1973, Hennepin County — building out its community mental health system — contracted with WICC for counseling, consultation, and training. That partnership lasted thirty years, until funding cuts in 2003 forced major reductions. 

The contract let WICC keep doing what it did best: serving people without charge, without compromising privacy, and — for anyone who preferred it — without ever giving a name. 

Helping Shape Community Services and Protections

WICC's work went beyond young people and people struggling with drug abuse. We served survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse — and we didn't stop at counseling. WICC helped organize and build the community's response to rape and sexual assault, domestic violence, the needs of LGBTQ+ people, and sexual exploitation by professionals. 

We played a key role in developing services for sexual abuse survivors and improving how the criminal justice system responded to them. WICC organized the Consortium on Battered Women, which helped build a statewide system of family violence programs, and helped develop Gay & Lesbian Community Services. 

WICC also started the first known support group of its kind, anywhere, for people who had been sexually exploited by their therapists or other providers. That work led the Minnesota Legislature to study the issue in 1985 and pass laws that became a model for other states. 

It put WICC in the international spotlight and led to a book: Psychotherapists' Sexual Involvement With Clients: Intervention & Prevention (Schoener, Milgrom, Gonsiorek, Luepker & Conroe, 1989). In 1988 and 1992, WICC co-sponsored international conferences on sexual exploitation by professionals, drawing hundreds of professionals from around the world. 

Recognition for Walk-In's Work

In 1977, WICC received the Gold Achievement Award in Hospital & Community Psychiatry from the American Psychiatric Association — the only program in the Upper Midwest to receive it that year, and the highest award in that field. Over the years, WICC and its staff have been recognized for a range of accomplishments. 

A Focus on What Brings People In

When WICC opened, crisis intervention was a new idea, and short-term therapy was considered unconventional. A lot of approaches have evolved since then, but WICC's was ahead of its time. 

Our focus was then, and still is, on listening to what brought someone through the door — and getting to work. No intake questionnaires. No routine history-taking. Just a conversation that starts where the person is. WICC has also contributed to the broader literature on brief therapy. 

Training and Learning Together

Many volunteers say the training they got at WICC shaped their careers. For young professionals, it was an introduction to the field — and a chance to work alongside experienced clinicians who volunteered right beside them. 

In the 1980s, WICC staff and volunteers began teaching a core class on Short-Term Therapy & Community Psychology in the Clinical Psychology Training Program at the University of Minnesota — a class WICC continued teaching into the 1990s, until the program shifted toward a research focus. WICC staff also lectured across a number of graduate training programs, and psychology and social work internships were based at WICC for many years. 

Field placements have taken many shapes over the decades. Psychology doctoral students from the University of Minnesota could volunteer at the internship level as early as the 1970s, and by around 1980, WICC had paid, full-time intern positions pairing psychology and social work trainees. In the 1990s, WICC partnered with the graduate psychology program at Argosy University, which closed about a decade ago. As those graduate-program ties shifted in the years that followed, WICC's field placements moved toward social work — the foundation placements are built on today. 

From the beginning, WICC staff and volunteers have offered consultation and training on ethical issues to professionals and organizations well beyond our own walls. 

Continuing Through Change

In 2003, Hennepin County significantly cut its mental health services contracts, and WICC was one of the organizations affected. We shifted to a model built on private donations and foundation grants — and kept going. 

The professional communities in psychology, social work, marriage and family therapy, and professional counseling kept showing up as volunteers, sustaining the collective that has always powered Walk-In. 

In 2020, COVID-19 brought a different kind of challenge. Like other providers, WICC moved to virtual clinics over Zoom. When it was safe again, we reopened our walk-in afternoon clinics — and kept the Zoom clinics running too, for volunteers and community members who preferred them. 

Find current clinic hours and ways to connect 

Further Reading

For those who want to go deeper: 

The Alternative Services: Their Role in Mental Health (Glasscote et al., 1975). Includes a chapter on WICC. 

Psychotherapists' Sexual Involvement With Clients: Intervention & Prevention (Schoener, Milgrom, Gonsiorek, Luepker & Conroe, 1989). Published by WICC. 

Schoener, G.R. (2011). Walk-In Counseling Center: Minneapolis, Minnesota. In Slive, A., & Bobele, M. (Eds.), When One Hour Is All You Have: Effective Therapy for Walk-In Clients (pp. 95–108).