Youth ALIVE!: Walking Alongside Oakland Communities
Tag: Features
For more than 30 years, Youth ALIVE! has worked across Oakland through violence prevention, intervention, healing services, advocacy, and long-term support for young people and families impacted by violence. Their work spans street outreach, hospital response, counseling services, mentorship, and community advocacy, all rooted in a relationship-based approach centered on trust, healing, and long-term care.
As Youth ALIVE! continues its work from its new presence in Jack London, we spoke with Lauren Greenberg, Director of Development and Communications at Youth ALIVE!, to learn more about the organization’s approach to healing and prevention, the experiences that continue to shape its mission, and the importance of walking alongside communities through both crisis and healing.
Q: For people discovering Youth ALIVE! for the first time, how would you describe the organization and the work you do?
A: Youth ALIVE! is Oakland’s anchor community-based organization focused on violence prevention, intervention, healing, and advocacy. For more than three decades, we’ve worked alongside young people, families, hospitals, schools, and neighborhoods to break cycles of violence and create pathways toward healing and opportunity. Our work spans street outreach, school-based violence interruption, hospital-based intervention, mental health services, youth leadership development, and crisis response for families impacted by homicide. At our core, we believe violence is preventable, healing is possible, and communities most impacted by violence already hold the wisdom and leadership needed to create safer futures.
Q: Youth ALIVE! has been part of Oakland for decades. What has kept the organization grounded and committed to this work over the years?
A: What has sustained Youth ALIVE! is our deep roots in Oakland and our commitment to being led by the community. Many of our staff have personally experienced violence, loss, or systemic barriers themselves. They do this work not because it is theoretical, but because it is deeply personal. We’ve remained grounded by listening to young people and families, evolving alongside the city, and staying connected to the humanity of the people we serve. Oakland is a city with tremendous resilience, creativity, and care for one another, and that spirit is woven into everything we do.
Q: Youth ALIVE! supports young people and families through some incredibly difficult moments, while also creating pathways toward healing and opportunity. What does that support often look like in practice?
A: Support can look different depending on the moment and the person. Sometimes it means showing up at a hospital bedside immediately after someone has been violently injured. Sometimes it means helping a grieving family navigate funeral costs, victim compensation, or simply sitting with them in their grief after a homicide. It can look like mediating conflicts before violence escalates, mentoring a young person at school, helping someone find employment, accompanying a client to court, or connecting them with mental health counseling and long-term healing support.
What makes our approach unique is that we don’t just respond to crisis — we stay. We build relationships over time and walk alongside people as they navigate healing, growth, and stability.
Q: Your work focuses not only on intervention but also on healing, mentorship, advocacy, and long-term support. Why is it important to approach this work from multiple angles?
A: Violence doesn’t happen in isolation, and neither does healing. Violence is connected to trauma, poverty, systemic inequities, disconnection, and lack of opportunity. Because of that, no single strategy is enough. Preventing violence requires immediate intervention in moments of crisis, but it also requires long-term investments in healing, mentorship, economic opportunity, mental health, and leadership development.
We often say that we meet people where they are — physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Someone may need crisis intervention today, counseling tomorrow, and leadership opportunities six months from now. By approaching the work holistically, we help create not just safer moments, but healthier futures.
Q: Oakland has such a strong culture of resilience and community care. How has the city shaped the identity and approach of Youth ALIVE!?
A: Oakland has shaped everything about who we are. This city has a long history of grassroots leadership, activism, cultural expression, and communities stepping up to care for one another in the face of systemic challenges. Youth ALIVE! was born from that tradition.
Our approach is deeply relational and community-rooted because that’s how Oakland operates. We believe solutions come from people closest to the issues, and we trust the leadership of young people, survivors, and credible messengers who understand these experiences firsthand. Oakland has taught us that healing and safety are collective responsibilities, and that real change happens through relationships, trust, and community power.
Q: Looking ahead, what gives you hope right now?
A: What gives me hope is the young people, families, and frontline workers who continue to show up for one another every single day, even in incredibly difficult circumstances. I’m hopeful when I see young people transforming pain into leadership, survivors advocating for healing and justice, and communities refusing to give up on one another.
I’m also hopeful because we are seeing evidence that this work matters. Oakland has experienced meaningful reductions in violence in recent years, and while there is still much work to do, it reinforces what we’ve long known: when communities are resourced, when healing is prioritized, and when credible messengers are empowered to lead, lives are saved.
Hope lives in the relationships we build, the resilience of this city, and the belief that safer, healthier communities are possible.
