Since 1978, our mission has been to provide comprehensive and integrated mental health services with a commitment to the highest quality programming while meeting the needs of our communities. Our primary focus has been to restore dignity, emotional wholeness, and a renewed sense of self-worth into the lives of young people. We promote these ideals by providing a treatment community of unmatched quality, with support, guidance, and caring as the cornerstones of the path to our clients’ successes.

Northwest Passage, LTD.

From Humble Beginnings to a Forerunner in Residential Care...
From its genesis in 1978, Northwest Passage programming has centered on blending mental health treatment with teaching personal responsibility to troubled adolescents as a means of helping them find ways past life's struggles. Now, all these years later, the problems facing children and teens have changed, yet in some respects have stayed the same. The challenges in families are greater and our world is more complex; but fundamental needs for self-respect, trust, relationships, and steady guidance remain the same. And while Northwest Passage has grown in size and in sophistication, we've never lost sight of the foundations all children need to be successful, regardless of what struggle or challenge they face.

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Northwest Counseling and Guidance Clinic

In 1978, three talented line staff from a mental health hospital in Minneapolis started Northwest Passage, Ltd. Wanting to provide a more homelike and individualized service to children, the residential services started out small and have grown into four unique residential programs. After receiving several requests to provide transitional services within the community, in 1994, Northwest Passage developed its first children’s mental health day treatment program. Since that time, the organization has stayed true to its belief in children, staff, and quality programs.

The guiding vision was of a system that provided a continuum of mental health treatment programs in communities throughout Wisconsin. Great strides have been made toward realization of that vision with the creation of multiple programs offering services to a diverse population over a large geographic area:

• Northwest Counseling provides conventional, fee-for-service, community-based outpatient mental health programming in Frederic, Wisconsin. The professional staff delivers behavioral health services to adults, children and families.


• Northwest Journey provides children’s mental health day treatment. Our sites serve over 200 children and families daily in 11 communities throughout Wisconsin. The first program was started in 1997, and at the time represented the first full-day day treatment program in the state. It is a goal of the staff of each Northwest Journey facility to play a valued role in the larger mental health treatment network within the community in which they function.


• Northwest Connections includes telephone and mobile services for persons experiencing a crisis within contracting counties. NWCGC began providing this service in 2000, but further developed the services in January of 2005.

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