Mental Health Care in Winslow Township, NJ: A Local Guide

Call 911 if anyone is in immediate danger. For thoughts of suicide or a mental health crisis, call or text 988 at any hour. If someone may be a danger to themselves or others but is not in immediate danger, call Camden County's crisis screening line, run by Oaks Integrated Care: 856-428-4357 (856-428-HELP), 24 hours a day. Our crisis page has more numbers.

Winslow Township covers about 58 square miles at the southern tip of Camden County, by the school district's count, and its communities include Sicklerville, Cedar Brook, Blue Anchor, Braddock and Tansboro. For mental health care, the size is the problem. A few services sit inside the township. Oaks' walk-in urgent care for Camden County adults and the county's crisis screening site are both in Cherry Hill, a real drive. Knowing which help is close, which needs the car and which can come to you is most of the planning a Winslow family has to do.

Quick answer: Call 911 if anyone is in immediate danger. For thoughts of suicide or a mental health crisis, call or text 988 at any hour. If someone may be a danger to themselves or others but is not in immediate danger, call Camden County's crisis screening line, run by Oaks Integrated Care, at 856-428-4357, 24 hours a day. Oaks lists an office in town at 557 Williamstown Road, Sicklerville, 856-740-0589. For an adult who needs help today but not a hospital, Oaks' Mental Health Urgent Care is at 2051 Springdale Road, Cherry Hill, 856-254-3800, and it offers telehealth during its hours, so the first visit does not have to mean the drive.

What is inside Winslow itself?

Oaks Integrated Care, Sicklerville. Oaks, the nonprofit that runs Camden County's crisis screening, lists an office at 557 Williamstown Road, Sicklerville, 856-740-0589. Its locations page gives the address and phone but does not say which programs run there. Oaks' outpatient services include counseling for children, adults and families, and medication management. Billing is listed as Medicaid, Medicare, some private insurance and self-pay on a sliding scale fee. The intake line is the Oaks Access Center, 1-800-963-3377, weekdays 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. It is not a 24-hour line. When you call, say you live in Winslow and ask whether you can be seen at the Sicklerville office.

Orchards Family Success Center, 416 Sicklerville Road, Unit A-2, Sicklerville, 856-513-8829. Orchards is a neighborhood family support center, not a clinic. Acenda Integrated Health operates it, and the center says its activities are free and open to all families. It runs workshops, groups and family support. Its posted hours are Monday, Wednesday and Thursday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday 1 to 7 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and select Saturdays. The high school's counseling office links to it on its parent resources page.

Winslow Township Police, 125 South Route 73, Braddock. For drug or alcohol problems, the department's PATH program invites people to walk in to police headquarters 24/7 for help. The department calls the program voluntary and confidential. That is a door for asking about treatment. An overdose is different: call 911.

For residents 55 and older. The township runs a free senior bus, Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., except holidays. Call 609-820-4481 to reserve a seat. The township's page lists the bus schedule as a set of stops for each weekday, so ask whether the bus can get you to an appointment before you count on it.

What means a drive to Cherry Hill?

Mental Health Urgent Care, 2051 Springdale Road, Cherry Hill, 856-254-3800. Camden County adults 18 and older who are struggling but do not need a hospital can use it, and Oaks asks people to try it before a screening center or emergency room. Walk-ins are taken Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. No Sunday hours are listed. Oaks says on-site and telehealth services are both available during those hours, and that the team can work with a person for up to 30 days. Billing is self-pay, insurance, Medicaid or a sliding scale fee based on income. Outside those hours, Oaks points people to 856-428-HELP, or to 911 in an emergency.

From Blue Anchor or Cedar Brook, that telehealth option matters most. Call first and ask whether the first visit can be by video. Our telehealth guide explains how video care works and how insurance treats it.

Crisis screening at Jefferson Cherry Hill Hospital, 2201 Chapel Avenue, Cherry Hill. Oaks provides screening and stabilization for adults and youth in a psychiatric emergency, 24 hours a day, every day of the year, at this hospital. The state's list of designated screening services names Oaks for Camden County, with 856-428-4357 as the 24-hour number. Oaks asks that you call 856-428-HELP before visiting. Do not make a long drive with someone in crisis before that call. The same line is how you ask for Adult Mobile Outreach, below. Our Cherry Hill guide covers what a visit to either Cherry Hill service involves.

Mobile teams for adults and children

For an adult: Adult Mobile Outreach. Oaks runs Adult Mobile Outreach in Camden County for adults whose mental health symptoms are getting worse. Anyone can request it, including family members, friends, coworkers, employers or medical professionals. Oaks says its clinicians meet people in the community, including at home, when the person is unwilling or unable to come to a hospital-based crisis unit. The request starts at the crisis line, 856-428-4357. If you are worried about an adult who refuses help, also read our guide for when someone you love will not get help.

For a child or teen: Children's Mobile Response through PerformCare. For a life-threatening emergency, PerformCare says to always dial 911. If the situation is urgent but not life-threatening, call PerformCare at 1-877-652-7624, New Jersey's Children's System of Care line, open 24 hours a day. PerformCare says it may authorize a mobile response team to come to your home within one hour of notification. The Camden County team is Oaks' Children's Mobile Response, which serves ages 5 to 21. Oaks lists anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and refusal to attend school among the reasons to call. If PerformCare finds that your child should be evaluated for hospitalization, it says it will refer you to a local screening center.

What is Ancora Psychiatric Hospital?

Ancora Psychiatric Hospital is one of New Jersey's state psychiatric hospitals, run by the state Department of Health. State documents place it in Winslow Township, on Spring Garden Road, with a Hammonton mailing address. It provides inpatient care for adults, mainly from eight counties, Camden among them.

It is not a place a family can take someone for care. The state's fact sheet says people are typically admitted through the involuntary commitment process, by referral from short-term care facilities, county hospitals, private psychiatric hospitals and, less often, jails and designated screening centers. Every referral goes through a central state admissions office. The state authorizes each county's screening service to evaluate people for involuntary commitment; in Camden County, that is Oaks. If you are worried someone may need a hospital, the path starts with 911 or the screening line, 856-428-4357, not with a drive to Spring Garden Road.

If a relative is already a patient there, the state's Ancora page lists the main number, 609-561-1700, and says all visits must be scheduled ahead.

Where do Winslow parents start?

Start at school. The Winslow Township High School counseling office lists a Student Assistance Counselor and, among in-district services, individual and group counseling sessions and the Child Study Team. Call the high school at 856-767-1850 and ask for the student assistance counselor.

One caution. The high school's older SAC Resources page still lists agencies under past names: "Value Options" for the number that now reaches PerformCare, and "Kennedy Crisis Center" for 856-428-4357, which is now Oaks' crisis screening line. Use the current names, PerformCare and Oaks, when you call.

For a parent who needs support of their own, the Camden County Family Support Organization, 1030 Kings Highway North, Suite 210, Cherry Hill, 856-662-2600, is run by parents and caregivers of children with emotional, behavioral or mental health challenges. It offers peer support and advocacy. If you are not sure yet whether this is a phase, our parent's guide goes through warning signs and how to open the subject with a teen.

Under New Jersey law (N.J.S.A. 9:17A-4), a teen 16 or older who believes they need mental health care can consent on their own to temporary outpatient treatment, not including medication. A teen who would rather talk to someone outside the family can call 2NDFLOOR, 1-888-222-2228, a 24-hour New Jersey youth helpline that PerformCare lists for calls or texts.

Paying for care on a tight budget

Oaks' sliding scale is one answer. Another is CAMcare Health Corporation, a community health center network with an open site at 121 White Horse Pike, Clementon. One number schedules every site: 856-583-2400. CAMcare says no one is denied care because of their inability to pay, and it offers a sliding fee discount based on income and family size. Its behavioral health page lists licensed clinical social workers and psychiatric nurse practitioners on the team, but CAMcare does not say which sites offer behavioral health, so ask when you call. CAMcare lists Clementon's hours as Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the first Saturday of the month, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Some of its pages also list Tuesday hours until 8 p.m. and others do not, so call before you plan an evening visit.

A caller who does not yet know what kind of care to ask for can start with NJMentalHealthCares, 1-866-202-4357, which the state lists as open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week, for support and help finding services. It does not handle crises; use the numbers at the top of this page for that.

For older adults, the township's Municipal Drug Alliance page posts a county flyer for Healthy Minds Healthy Aging, free sessions on medication and substance use safety for older adults, in person or virtual; groups can request one at 856-427-6553. See also our guides to NJ FamilyCare and mental health and therapy without insurance.

Plan the drive before you need it

A crisis is a bad time to look up an address. Most of the planning can be done tonight.

Save the numbers. Put these in every adult's phone: 911; 988; the county screening line, 856-428-4357; the urgent care, 856-254-3800; PerformCare, 1-877-652-7624, if you have children at home; and the Oaks Access Center, 1-800-963-3377, for weekday intake.

Decide who drives. Pick the person who would take an adult to the Cherry Hill urgent care on a weekday evening or a Saturday, and a backup. Unless someone is in immediate danger, which means 911, agree that the first step is a phone call, not the car. The urgent care offers telehealth during its hours, and for an adult who will not or cannot come in, the screening line is how you request Adult Mobile Outreach.

Know what to do if no one can drive. Call. The screening line can arrange Adult Mobile Outreach for an adult, and PerformCare can authorize a team for a child. If the person has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a family member they authorize can also enroll them in the police department's voluntary Public Safety A.I.D. program, so that officers and other first responders have their needs and an emergency contact on file before a call ever happens. And if anyone is in immediate danger, call 911.