Patients walking into the Center for Behavioral Wellness at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch now pass a new installation: the Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa Path to Wellness Wall, a display of words and short passages about healing and recovery. The couple paid for it, and Springsteen came to the ribbon cutting on October 27 to see it opened.

The hospital, part of RWJBarnabas Health, announced the unveiling on November 11. The idea behind the wall, as the hospital describes it, is simple: recovery is a journey, and nobody has to make it alone. The wall is meant to say that to people on their first visit, before anyone says a word.

Where it is

The Center for Behavioral Wellness is in the Pollak building on the Monmouth Medical Center campus in Long Branch. It provides outpatient mental health care for adults, adolescents and children, delivered by a team that draws on several behavioral health disciplines. The hospital describes the wall as part of the center's welcoming design, and the first thing many patients will see.

Speakers at the October ceremony included Eric Carney, president and chief executive of Monmouth Medical Center and Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus, along with Susan Reinhard, who chairs the RWJBarnabas Health board, and John Doll, the system's chief operating officer. The hospital credited Springsteen with raising awareness of mental health through his music and through his film work.

A new program for young adults

The wall arrives alongside something residents may find more useful day to day. The center has launched a Young Adult Intensive Outpatient Program for anxiety, depression, trauma, and cases where a mental health condition and substance use show up together.

Intensive outpatient care sits between a weekly therapy appointment and a hospital stay. Participants keep living at home, and often keep up school or work, while attending structured treatment sessions that build coping skills. For a family in Monmouth or Ocean County that has been told weekly therapy is not enough but does not want an inpatient admission, it is the step in between.

The hospital did not publish an age range or a weekly schedule for the program in its announcement. The center's intake line, 732-923-5270, is the place to ask about eligibility, insurance and start dates.

About the hospital

Monmouth Medical Center was the first hospital in Monmouth and Ocean counties, and it is a regional teaching campus for Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. According to RWJBarnabas Health, it delivers more babies each year than all the other hospitals in the two counties combined. Its main campus is in Long Branch, which is served by the Long Branch station on NJ Transit's North Jersey Coast Line.

RWJBarnabas Health is New Jersey's largest academic health system, with 14 hospitals and more than 700 patient care locations across the state.

If you or someone you know needs help

To ask about outpatient care or the young adult program, call the Center for Behavioral Wellness at 732-923-5270. Anyone in crisis can call or text 988, the national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, at any hour.

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