The blog Points is publishing a series of interviews with key theorists and practitioners of alcohol and drugs research, treatment, and recovery among women and communities of color during the 1970s, '80s, and '90s.
They recently interviewed Jim Baumohl, professor emeritus of social work and social research.
From the interview:
"I am the last living founder and the first director of Berkeley-Oakland Support Services (now called BOSS) a homelessness agency marking its 50th anniversary this year—which is a sad sort of milestone, I suppose. I worked with homeless people at BOSS under different job titles from 1971–76, served on its board of directors from 1978–1983, and organized single-room occupancy hotel tenants under its cover from 1983–85. To the extent that anyone knows who I am, it’s because of my scholarship on homelessness and my work with local organizations in the Bay Area, Philadelphia and Montreal, and the National Coalition for the Homeless, for which I edited a benefit book in 1996.
"My 'street practice' brought me into the lives of people with persistent, major mental disorders and/or problems related to heavy drinking and drugging. My colleagues and I worked from the low-demand, harm-reduction perspective now named and widely taken for granted; but even then, this approach wasn’t unusual. I learned this in 1975 when a very generous Berkeley research shop (the Institute for Research in Social Behavior) gave me money to visit agencies in the U.S. and Canada like the one I’d helped found. Typically, these agencies had come to the same set of practices at the same time without being aware of each other—or about historical precedents."
Read the entire two-part interview at Points.
Bryn Mawr's GSSWSR is distinguished by its dedication to fine teaching, attentiveness to individual students, and high academic standards within a liberal arts tradition. Founded in 1915, the GSSWSR has from its inception embraced scholarship, practice, and collaboration within a broad construction of social work and social welfare.