Violence Prevention Network Coordinator
Oakland Unite
Oakland, California, United States
Kevin Grant is a nationally renowned expert in street outreach, violence mediation, prisoner re-entry, and employment programs aimed at helping youth and young adults find alternatives to violence and crime. He has twenty years of experience working with at-risk youth and the formerly incarcerated in the San Francisco Bay Area and has literally touched thousands of lives.
Growing up on the streets of Oakland, Kevin was in and out of the juvenile justice system at a young age. Released from federal prison in 1989, he took from his experience the motivation to change his life's direction and the compassion to help others like him. One of Kevin’s first jobs out of prison was as a motivational speaker for Oakland's Parole and Community Team meetings, which are required for individuals re-entering their communities after incarceration. His ability to connect with and inspire people was immediately recognized, and he was asked to conduct similar meetings in other cities.
Over the past twenty years, Kevin provides classes as a consultant via Kevin Grant Consulting, LLC to juvenile’s offenders confined at the Alameda County Juvenile Justice Center, youth at Camp Sweeny (a juvenile detention camp) and to many high control juvenile probationers in Alameda County. He has also provided similar services for the California State Parole Office. The goal of the classes is to provide youth with the tools necessary to refocus their lives and give them hope that they can change. Topics include employment preparedness, life skills, child and family relationships, anger management, signs of addiction and many others. Kevin teaches this class to approximately 150 youth a year.
Kevin is the Violence Prevention Coordinator for the City of Oakland, California since 2006. He leads three skilled outreach teams who are made up of members of the community. The outreach team attempts to stop violence before it happens. The teams walk the streets of Oakland's neighborhoods plagued by crime. Trusted in the community, the street teams listen and assess issues, mediate potentially violent situations and connect individuals to needed resources. This community approach has resulted in fewer incidents of assault and battery and other violent crimes.
Kevin also provides very high risk youth and young adults employment opportunities in their neighborhood through his new program, “Loved Ones.” The goal is to provide youth just starting down a more positive path with the motivation and economic stability to continue. Youth are assigned to a recreation center where they clean the parks or to work at a local business for a few hours every week. In exchange, Loved Ones provides stipends to the youth for their work.
Recognized as a national expert, Kevin also provides workshops and trainings for law enforcement agencies, community service providers and school districts at local, state and federal levels. Workshop topics include: how to work with gang involved youth; best practices in implementing a street outreach program; job training and employment for hard to serve youth and young adults among many others.
Kevin is the winner of the 2013 California Wellness Peace Prize, a prestigious honor in the field of violence prevention. He also was honored as a Hometown Hero by Comcast and the Bay Area News Group in 2010 and received the Oakland Citizen Humanitarian Award in 2009. Kevin is a sought after motivational speaker, trainer and conference panelist. Despite these wider opportunities to share what he has learned over the years and manage citywide projects, he still rarely turns away individuals or “loved ones” seeking out his help. For Kevin, saving youth from the streets is not just a career, it is a calling.
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Law Enforcement Coordination with Community Violence Intervention Programs in the Real World
Tuesday, October 17, 2023
12:30 PM – 1:30 PM PST
