Children’s Wisconsin will open a mental health walk-in clinic in Green Bay in late 2025. This service will be provided within the Bellin Psychiatric Center, located at 301 E. St. Joseph St., Green Bay. The opening date will be determined based on recruitment of providers and other team members needed to staff the clinic. The Children’s Wisconsin Green Bay Mental Health Walk-In Clinic will be the third of its kind in Wisconsin, and is a novel approach to fill a gap in care for kids experiencing a mental health need requiring immediate support. Funding for this location was made possible through a donation from Kohl’s.
Children’s Wisconsin opened its first mental health walk-in clinic in Milwaukee in 2022, and its second mental health walk-in clinic in Kenosha in 2024. Funding for the Kenosha location was also made possible by a generous donation from Kohl’s. Since Children’s Wisconsin’s first walk-in clinic opened in 2022, these urgent mental health services have supported more than 3,400 kids.
“The growing mental health crisis facing Wisconsin’s youth isn’t going away, so we’re expanding our services to reach more kids,” said Amy Herbst, MSSW, APSW, Vice President of Mental and Behavioral Health at Children’s Wisconsin. “These walk-in clinics serve as ‘urgent care’ for mental health to provide support when a need arises suddenly. Even if a child has an existing mental health provider, they might not be able to wait for their next appointment. For kids who do not have a provider, this clinic is a great place to start. We can lend support in the moment and establish a treatment plan going forward. Sometimes kids need help now, and that’s what these mental health walk-in clinics provide.”
Most kids seen at the Children’s Wisconsin Milwaukee and Kenosha Walk-In Clinics have sought care for anxiety, depression, trauma concerns and school avoidance. When the new clinic opens in Green Bay later this year, help will be closer to home for families in Brown, and Oconto Counties and beyond.
All Children’s Wisconsin mental health walk-in clinics are staffed by licensed therapists, care navigators or social workers and clinical assistants. Children and teens ages 5 to 18 can access care immediately, with no appointment, referral or previous history with Children’s Wisconsin required. The clinics offer a therapy session, safety evaluation and support in connecting families to resources in the community, and they provide continuing support until those resources are in place.
“We are grateful to our partners at Bellin Health for their collaboration and for sharing their space with us,” said Herbst. “We know the kids and families in Northeast Wisconsin benefit when health care organizations work together. Our partnerships with Bellin Health and ThedaCare through Connected for Kids as well as our collaboration with Catalpa Health strengthen the care we provide in the region and help us offer exceptional services that otherwise wouldn’t be possible.”
“We couldn’t ask for a better partner than Children’s Wisconsin to help us bring pediatric mental health care for immediate needs to Northeast Wisconsin,” said Debbie Patz, Vice President of the Bellin Psychiatric Center. “There continues to be demand for mental health services that outpaces the number of providers available to serve kids’ needs. This walk-in clinic will help the whole system by providing an immediate option for families to assess what is needed now, provide valuable education for the family for the future and allow them to leave with a plan to move forward.”
In 2019, Children’s Wisconsin started a commitment to transform how it provided mental health services to address the mental and behavioral health crisis facing Wisconsin kids. The goal is to detect needs sooner, improve access to care, raise awareness of mental health and advance research and education. The new walk-in clinic is the latest commitment of Children’s Wisconsin to ensure that every child’s mental health is as important as their physical health, and part of the newly formed Craig Yabuki Mental Health Center at Children’s Wisconsin.
Kohl’s was among the first to support the Children’s Wisconsin vision to improve mental health access and has supported Children’s Wisconsin since 2001, with the long-standing relationship rooted in creating new and exciting programs focused on kids' health and education.
"Kohl’s is proud to support Children Wisconsin’s mission of expanding critical resources for our youth,” said Jill Timm, Kohl’s Chief Financial Officer and Children’s Wisconsin Foundation Board Member. “These clinics offer much-needed, vital care for families in Kenosha and Green Bay."
Kohl’s donation is made possible through the Kohl’s Cares Goods for Good™ merchandise program, which sells children’s books and toys and donates 100% of the net profit to support the health and wellness of families in communities nationwide.
