When Kay Bochert discovered Walk-In Counseling Center, it was the early 80s, and she was a freshly minted social worker with a master’s degree. She was invited to join a private practice, but she declined. “I wanted to be in the community.”
She found Walk-In Counseling Center and applied to volunteer there, providing free counseling services for all comers. “It was community health, it was very well thought of in the community, and it provided supervision.” She wasn’t disappointed.
“The quality of the supervisors was just astounding. I learned all about the local resources, and it was a great place to learn best practices.” She stayed 20 years, 10 on the Board and 10 as a counselor.“Walk-In had a huge impact on me. It made me a much better clinical social worker.”
Social work was a natural fit for Kay. “That’s what I am at heart. I come from a social justice family who had to move every two years because of my father’s sales job.” This made her aware of how hard constant change could be on all members of a family.
Her childhood experiences gave her perspective on “the things you do when don’t have money,” Kay recalls. “When I was child and we went shoe shopping, my mother always made me get shoes that were two sizes too big, so I could grow into them.”
As an adult, she’s always done “more”. In addition to volunteering at Walk-In, she also served the homeless as a board member of the St. Stephen’s Human Services homeless shelter. She recalls taking a group from the shelter on a tour of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, where she was a docent. One man spoke with her at the end of the tour, and “he could tell me about every single thing he had seen,” she recalls. “Never stereotype someone from a shelter. You don’t know anything about their life experiences.”
She also volunteered for the American Red Cross as a Disaster Mental Health volunteer. Once again, her skills learned at Walk-In were called on to meet people in crisis and who experienced an abrupt and major life change.
Now in her 70’s, Kay is continuing her life’s social justice work. She supports many organizations financially, including Walk-In, where she helped organize and sponsor the 50th anniversary celebration in 2019. She has just finished attending a Virtual Prayer Tent every morning for 78 days hosted by a grass roots community in North Minneapolis after George Floyd was murdered.
“My family is multiracial and I have always spoken up about institutional racism. Because of my experiences in North Minneapolis I have decided to spend the rest of my life learning more and speaking about anti-racism. Along with teaching meditation and the Wisdom Path of world religions and spirituality, that is where I am called now.
The constant that remains is the heart of a social worker.
