Father Gregory Boyle speaks at 100 Gasson Hall. Photos by Tim Correira.
The Boston College School of Social Work officially launched its new Accompaniment in Action initiative earlier this month with a Q&A featuring Father Gregory Boyle, the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world.
Framed by a huge stained glass window, Boyle told more than 100 students, faculty, and staff who filled 100 Gasson Hall that accompaniment is the practice of entering into relationships with people—particularly those on the margins—not to save or fix them, but to be transformed by their presence, wisdom, and humanity. It’s about building a community of kinship where divisions dissolve, he said, mutual belonging is fostered, and both parties are continually renewed through authentic connection.
“You don’t go to the margins to make a difference. Then it’s about you,” said Boyle, who received a M.Div. in 1984 from the Weston Jesuit School of Theology, which reaffiliated with BC in 2008 to form the Clough School of Theology and Ministry. “But you go to the margins so that the folks at the margins make you different. Then it’s about us. And so the goal is to create a community of kinship such that God might recognize it where there is no us and them, there’s just us.”
BCSSW recently named Accompaniment in Action as its theme for the new academic year, fostering a model of education built on listening, kinship, and mutual transformation.
At its heart, accompaniment means walking alongside others—sharing their burdens and hopes, staying present as long as needed, and being continually renewed through genuine relationships, especially with those on the margins.
In practice, it’s built on four principles that mirror the National Association of Social Workers code of ethics:
Walking together—supporting communities on their own terms
Kinship and shared dignity—recognizing partners’ equal worth and fostering belonging
Intentional engagement—working toward mutual transformation
Social justice—challenging unequal systems
“You don’t go to the margins to make a difference. Then it’s about you. But you go to the margins so that the folks at the margins make you different. Then it’s about us. And so the goal is to create a community of kinship such that God might recognize it where there is no us and them, there’s just us. ”
As the founder of Homeboy Industries, Boyle has spent nearly 40 years building kinship with former gang members in Los Angeles. His work—which includes providing free education, legal services, and job training—is less about outcomes or evidence-based measures of success, and more about delighting in the person in front of him. That kind of presence, he argued, can be “eternally replenishing” for both social workers and the people they accompany.
“It isn’t service provider, service recipient—it’s the mutuality you’re going for,” he said, referring to the type of relationship that social workers should strive to build with their clients. “The more you can make sure that it isn’t about you, I think the better—that’s eternally replenishing.”
Boyle called this way of being radical kinship: the “exquisite mutuality where there is no us and them, where there is no daylight that separates you.”
In her introductory remarks, BCSSW Professor Rocío Calvo tied BCSSW’s focus on accompaniment to the University’s Jesuit mission, which calls students to find purpose, live fulfilling lives, and understand the world around them.
“Accompaniment is a core value of the Jesuit mission,” said Calvo, who is overseeing BCSSW’s new initiative in collaboration with Teresa Schirmer, associate dean of student experience. “It shapes everything we do—your foundation as future social workers and how we work with communities.”
As part of the Q&A, two men who have come through Homeboy’s doors—Rafael Chavez and Spencer Edwards—shared their own stories of what accompaniment looks like in practice.
After spending nearly 30 years in prison, Chavez said that he was met with unconditional love at Homeboy Industries. Now he tries to give that same love back to newcomers who are just starting their journeys in search of healing and growth.
“I felt the love at Homeboy immediately from everyone. Even people that don’t even know me, you know?” he said. “Now I reciprocate everything everybody gives me—I give it back.”
From left to right: Rocío Calvo, Spencer Edwards, Father Gregory Boyle, Teresa Schirmer, and Rafael Chavez.
Edwards said that he was shot multiple times as a teenager and imprisoned for nearly two decades. He came to Homeboy Industries in April, closed off and unwilling to trust anyone.
His first encounter with Boyle, whom he affectionately called “Father G,” left him stunned: Boyle pressed $300 into his hand, Edwards tried to refuse it, but Boyle wouldn’t let him. “You're not different from anybody else up in here,” Edwards recalled Boyle telling him. “You've been in the same situation. Just a little bit worse. Why are you so hard about taking help?”
On stage at BC, six months later, Edwards described Homeboy Industries as the first place he found a true family. “This is my father,” he said, referring to Boyle, before adding, “kinship is family, kinship is hope, kinship is never given up.”
These testimonies captured what accompaniment in action really means, according to Boyle: entering into the lives of others so that everyone is changed.
The challenge, he said, is that accompaniment asks a lot of those who practice it, especially social workers. It calls for endurance and deep commitment—the patience to return again and again, offering presence and support without ever imposing an agenda.
“It’s about casting your lot, really accompanying people,” said Boyle. “I’m going to live with folks. I’m going to be the slave of the slaves, as Jesuit Priest Peter Claver said. It’s a way of saying, ‘I am with you.’”
As the conversation drew to a close, he advised social workers to abandon the pursuit of success as a measure of their work and instead focus on building connections rooted in faith. Quoting Mother Teresa, he reminded the audience: “We’re not called to be successful. We’re called to be faithful.”
