Jamie Lavender
Home Group Lead
Jamie (he/they) is a clinical supervisor and trainer at Alchemy.
“I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who started by working as an HIV Test Counselor at Glide Health Services, and have been working in community health ever since.
These days, one way I continue to stay involved and connected with community health is in my teaching work in the City College of San Francisco Health Education Department. I’ve taught in a variety of programs including the Graduate Psychology Program at Holy Names University and the California Institute of Integral Studies’ Integral Transpersonal Psychology Program.
My most formative training was during the ten years I was lucky to work at the Harm Reduction Therapy Center (aka the Center for Harm Reduction Therapy), first as an intern, then as a staff psychotherapist and community programs coordinator.
Working at HRTC, I engaged in individual and group psychotherapy with people with unresolved substance use issues, in low-threshold community mental health settings and in private practice, and provided training and clinical consultation for staff at a variety of community-based organizations (for instance, Hospitality House). I also worked with children and families in schools and family service agencies, with adults navigating the criminal justice system at a jail diversion program, and with opiate users accessing opiate replacement treatment. I was a therapist in the Office-Based Opiate Treatment (OBOT) Program, run by Community Behavioral Health Services at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, during the program’s inception as a pilot study in 2003 to 2005, and after its transition to a permanent program from 2007 to 2015.*
Since then, I’ve been teaching at City College of San Francisco, and conducting clinical supervision and consultation with people becoming licensed therapists, social workers, professional counselors, and community health workers. I’ve also been coordinating and implementing DPH-funded mental health grant programs, and working with staff teams at social service agencies.”
