Episode 71: Jennifer Baity -Therapist & Social Worker

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Jennifer Baity LCSW, LAAADC - Mental Health Expert

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“Really there's nothing that's going to stop the revolving door of clients that have very severe psychiatric conditions, periodically because these are chronic conditions where people do have relapses from time to time” - Jennifer

In this episode, our featured voice is Jennifer Baity, a therapist in private practice who does training on motivational interviewing and other topics for various agencies throughout the bay area and beyond.

One of the reasons we wanted to host Jennifer on the show is the long-term holistic perspective she brings to mental health services. We are now going into the 16th month of a global pandemic and we wanted to get Jennifer’s unique insights into how COVID-19 has not only impacted the San Francisco Mental Health Rehabilitation Center where she worked for 20 years, but also our mental health services in general here in San Francisco.

According to an April 2021 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 55 percent of women and 38 percent of men say that the pandemic has negatively affected their mental health. The pandemic has impacted our younger community members ranging from 18 to 29 years of age with 69 percent of women and 54 percent of men reporting a negative impact on their mental health.

Jennifer Baity

I am a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) and a licensed advanced alcohol and drug counselor (LAADC). I worked at the Mental Health Rehabilitation Center (MHRC) on the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital campus from 2000 to 2021. I was the Program Director there from 2009 – 2021. I provided staff supervision and training, oversaw and provided individual, group, and family treatment for adults with serious and persistent mental illness who also had problematic substance use histories, and co-developed the co-occurring disorders (dual diagnosis) program at the San Francisco Behavioral Health Center. I supervised 28 social work interns over almost 20 years from UC Berkeley, SF State, and CSU Sacramento. I have provided in-depth training to clinicians providing services to youth and adults since 1991 and regularly train staff in mental health and substance use disorder programs throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. I particularly specialize in training on the diagnosis and treatment of individuals with co-occurring mental health and substance-related disorders and Motivational Interviewing.
Previously, I was a therapist and supervisor at Edgewood Center for Children and Families in San Francisco and Seneca Center’s Therapeutic Foster Care Program and Day Treatment Program in San Leandro, CA.
I received my B.A in Psychology and Social Welfare at U.C. Berkeley and my M.S.S.W in Clinical Social Work at Columbia University.

Jennifer Baity LCSW, LAAADC

Individual Therapy - I have experience working with clients who have issues with stress, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, overuse of drugs and alcohol, eating disorders, schizophrenia spectrum disorders, personality disorders and more.

My approach to treatment is to try to find something that works for you. I am trained in a variety of evidenced-based practices and will match what I’m doing to suit your needs and goals.

Clinical Training & Consultation - I provide training that is dynamic, engaging, and humorous and I intertwine didactic and theoretical material, video, live demonstration, and group exercises in order to help participants achieve maximum skill development and information retention.

I also provide pre- and post-licensure clinical supervision and consultation on mental health and substance-related topics for individuals, groups, or agencies by appointment.

For both types of services, the most important thing to me is that the person or people receiving services from me feel valued, seen, and respected and that from the outset, my clients get what they came for.

For my therapy clients, this means meeting them where they are, accepting them for who they are (and helping them to do that for themselves too), while simultaneously assisting them to make changes in their lives at their own pace that help them better meet their life goals. I have worked with clients of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds, the LGBTQIA community, people with a full range of mental health conditions, people who are actively using substances (some of whom want to stop so I help them with that, and some who don’t so I use a wide variety of harm reduction techniques). I offer a free video consultation so clients can decide if working with me is a ‘good fit’ for them as well. I think it’s important that you find a therapist that you can trust and ‘click’ with.

For agencies – my goal is to ask what they would like their staff to be trained on and then to provide training that is dynamic, engaging, and humorous and to intertwine didactic and theoretical material, video, live demonstration, and group exercises in order to help participants achieve maximum skill development and information retention.

For individual clinicians who would like outside supervision because they are working toward licensure, or clinicians who are seeking consultation on a one-off or regular basis, I provide strengths-based supervision where I also share techniques and information that can help clinicians build competence and feel more confident in their work.

To find out more about Jennifer and to engage with her services and expertise please visit Jennifer’s website and read more about her through Psychology Today. You can also follow Jennifer on Twitter @jbaitylcsw and LinkedIn and reach her via email at jenniferbaity1@gmail.com

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“We don’t know how long the pandemic is going to affect people yet. We just know how it has impacted people and it will be for some time, but we don’t know how long, so people are going to be in there and trying to offer mental health services for a while, on the federal level, on a state level, on a city and county level ”

— Jennifer Baity,LCSW, LAAADC

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