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Youth Alive is an Oakland-based community organization that provides violence prevention, intervention, healing, and advocacy services. Its programs fall into four areas: prevention (Teens on Target), intervention (Violence Interrupters, Caught in the Crossfire, Hometown Heroes Fellowship, Pathways), healing (Khadafy Washington Project, Counseling Services), and advocacy (Legislative Action, Advocacy for Change). The organization states its wraparound services are always free, and it describes itself as community-based—not city government and not the police.

Prevention: Teens on Target

Teens on Target trains high school students to educate their peers about violence prevention, mediate conflicts, and advocate with elected officials and the public for safer communities. If you are a high school student or work with one, this is the entry point for youth-led prevention work.

Intervention: Mediating Conflicts and Defusing Tensions

Youth Alive's intervention programs share a common function—reaching people during or immediately after a crisis to stop retaliation and connect them to support.

The key distinction: Violence Interrupters work on conflicts before they escalate, while Caught in the Crossfire works with people who have already been injured. Pathways is the longer-term reentry and support track.

Healing: Support After Violence

• Khadafy Washington Project — serves nearly 100% of families of Oakland homicide victims with financial, emotional, and practical support after losing a loved one to violence.
• Counseling Services — healing-centered individual and group counseling sessions for people impacted by trauma and violence.

If you are a family member of someone killed in Oakland, the Khadafy Washington Project is the most direct route to support. For ongoing trauma from violence, Counseling Services is the relevant program.

Advocacy: Changing Policy to Change Lives

Youth Alive uses its 30 years of experience addressing violence and serving victims and survivors of crime to develop policy solutions at the local, statewide, and national level. Its advocacy work is centered on the experiences of youth, clients, and staff, creating platforms to share their stories so policymakers, community leaders, and supporters better understand the human impact.

How to Decide Where to Start

• You're a high school student or educator → Teens on Target
• You're in or near an active conflict → Violence Interrupters
• You or someone you know was just injured by violence → Caught in the Crossfire (hospital-based)
• You're returning from incarceration or need reentry support → Pathways
• You lost a family member to homicide in Oakland → Khadafy Washington Project
• You need counseling after trauma → Counseling Services
• You want to work in violence prevention → Hometown Heroes Fellowship

Each program page on youthalive.org includes a "Learn more" link with contact and referral details. Because services are described as free and community-run, cost is not a barrier to reaching out.

Youth Alive responds to violence on two immediate fronts: at the hospital bedside and in the aftermath of a homicide. Its Caught in the Crossfire program places Intervention Specialists with survivors of violence while they are still hospitalized, providing practical and logistical services meant to support healing, discourage retaliation, and help survivors return to their communities. For families, the Khadafy Washington Project serves nearly 100% of families of Oakland homicide victims with financial, emotional, and practical support after a loss. A third service, Counseling Services, offers healing-centered individual and group counseling to people impacted by trauma and violence.

These are wraparound services, and per the organization, they are always free. Youth Alive describes itself as community-based — "not city government, and we're not the police" — which matters for how survivors and families are approached.

Immediate Support for Survivors of Violence

Caught in the Crossfire

The defining feature of this program is timing and location: Intervention Specialists meet survivors of violence at their hospital bedside. That setting shapes what the program can do — it reaches people in the first hours and days after an injury, when practical needs and retaliation risk are both acute.

The stated goals of the bedside work are to:

• Provide practical and logistical services that support healing
• Discourage retaliation
• Return survivors to their communities

If you are trying to understand what "practical and logistical services" means in practice, the program description does not itemize them. What it does make clear is the intended outcome: stabilization after a violent injury rather than a cycle of reprisal.

Counseling Services

Counseling is offered as healing-centered individual and group sessions for individuals impacted by trauma and violence. This is a separate track from the bedside intervention — it addresses the ongoing psychological aftermath rather than the immediate crisis, and it is open to people affected by trauma and violence, not only direct survivors.

Support for Families of Homicide Victims

Khadafy Washington Project

This program is the clearest answer to the question of what happens to families after a homicide in Oakland. Its scope is unusually broad: it serves nearly 100% of families of Oakland homicide victims.

The support is described in three categories:

The project is framed around "moving forward on your journey" — language that positions the family's own path as the reference point, rather than a fixed service checklist.

What These Programs Have in Common

Three features connect the survivor and family services:

1. They are crisis-timed. The bedside program operates during hospitalization; the Khadafy Washington Project operates in the aftermath of a homicide. Both intervene at the moment when needs are most concentrated.
2. They are free. Youth Alive states its wraparound services are always free.
3. They are community-based, not law enforcement. Youth Alive explicitly distinguishes itself from city government and the police, which affects whether survivors and families are willing to engage.

Where to Start

If you are a survivor of violence or a family member of a homicide victim in Oakland, the relevant entry points are:

• Hospitalized after a violent injury → Caught in the Crossfire
• Lost a family member to homicide in Oakland → Khadafy Washington Project
• Dealing with trauma or violence-related grief outside an acute crisis → Counseling Services

Each program has its own "Learn more" page on youthalive.org. The site does not publish eligibility criteria, intake steps, or contact details in the material reviewed here, so the program pages themselves are the place to confirm how to access each service.

Youth Alive's advocacy work turns 30 years of direct experience with violence prevention, intervention, and healing into policy solutions at the local, statewide, and national level. The organization describes its approach as centered on the experiences of its youth, clients, and staff, creating platforms to hear, capture, and share their stories so that policymakers, community leaders, and supporters better understand the human impact of violence. If you want to support this work, the site points to a "Support us" section, though the specific donation or volunteer mechanics aren't detailed in the available page content.

What Youth Alive's Advocacy Actually Does

The organization frames its legislative work around a simple idea: change policy to change lives. According to its site, Youth Alive uses three decades of expertise in addressing violence and serving victims and survivors of crime to develop policy solutions designed to save lives in Oakland and beyond.

Two features distinguish this advocacy from typical lobbying:

• It draws on lived experience. The policy positions come from people who have been directly affected by violence—youth participants, clients, and frontline staff—rather than from abstract research alone.
• It operates across three levels. Youth Alive works at the local, statewide, and national level, meaning its advocacy isn't confined to Oakland city government.

The Storytelling Platform

A core advocacy method is narrative. Youth Alive creates platforms to hear, capture, and share the stories of youth, clients, and staff. The stated purpose is to inform how policymakers, community leaders, and supporters understand the human impact of violence. In practice, this means personal testimony becomes a tool for shaping how decision-makers frame violence prevention policy.

How This Fits With Youth Alive's Other Work

Advocacy is one of four pillars described on the site, alongside prevention, intervention, and healing. Understanding the full picture helps explain where the policy positions come from:

Teens on Target is notable because it explicitly includes advocacy as a youth activity—students aren't just learning about violence prevention, they're speaking to elected officials and the public about it. That makes youth voice a structural part of the advocacy pipeline, not an afterthought.

How Can You Support Youth Alive?

The site's navigation includes a "Support us" section, which is the natural starting point for anyone wanting to contribute. Based on the available page content, here's what can be said with confidence and what can't:

What the site confirms:

• Youth Alive is a community-based organization in Oakland, not city government and not the police.
• Its wraparound services are always free.
• There is a dedicated "Support us" page and a "News" section.

What the site doesn't specify in the available content:

• Whether donations are made online, by mail, or through another method
• Whether volunteer opportunities exist for people outside its program areas
• Any specific dollar amounts, membership tiers, or recurring giving options

If you want to support the advocacy work specifically, the most direct path is to visit the "Support us" section of youthalive.org and review the current options. For those interested in the policy side, following the "News" section would be the way to track legislative actions and advocacy campaigns as they develop.

A Practical Note on Eligibility and Access

Because Youth Alive states its wraparound services are always free and that it is community-based rather than a government or police agency, people seeking services—or wanting to refer someone—don't need to worry about cost as a barrier. The site doesn't list eligibility criteria in the available content, so specific program questions (for example, whether a particular counseling service or fellowship has age or residency requirements) would need to be directed to the organization.

The Bottom Line

Youth Alive advocates by converting 30 years of direct service experience into policy solutions at the local, state, and national level, with a deliberate emphasis on amplifying the stories of youth, clients, and staff. Its prevention, intervention, and healing programs feed directly into that advocacy, and Teens on Target explicitly trains young people to engage elected officials themselves. To support the work, start with the "Support us" section on youthalive.org; to follow the advocacy specifically, the "News" section is the place to watch.

Youth Alive (youthalive.org) is a community-based violence prevention, intervention, and healing agency based in Oakland, California. It is not part of city government and not a police department; it describes itself as "of and by the community," and its wraparound services are always free. If you are trying to understand what the organization does, who it serves, or how its programs fit together, the four areas below are the core of its work.

The four areas of work

Youth Alive organizes its programs under four headings: prevention, intervention, healing, and advocacy.

Prevention: stopping violence before it starts

Teens on Target trains high school students to educate their peers about violence prevention, mediate conflicts, and advocate with elected officials and the public for safer communities. This is a peer-education model: the people delivering the message are the same age as the people receiving it.

Intervention: mediating conflicts and defusing tensions

This is the largest cluster of programs:

• Violence Interrupters — staff described as "guardians of peace" who navigate tension in the community, work to extinguish individual and group conflicts, and stop violence before it starts.
• Caught in the Crossfire — Intervention Specialists meet survivors of violence at their hospital bedside and provide practical and logistical services aimed at supporting healing, discouraging retaliation, and helping survivors return to their communities.
• Hometown Heroes Fellowship — a workforce development initiative that builds the next generation of credible messengers and community leaders in community violence prevention.
• Pathways — connects at-promise youth with experienced Intervention Specialists for post-release services including educational assistance, legal aid, employment support, mentoring, and life skills training.

Healing: moving forward after loss

• Khadafy Washington Project — serves nearly 100% of families of Oakland homicide victims with financial, emotional, and practical support after losing a loved one to violence.
• Counseling Services — healing-centered individual and group counseling for people impacted by trauma and violence.

Advocacy: changing policy to change lives

Youth Alive draws on 30 years of experience addressing violence and serving victims and survivors of crime to develop policy solutions at the local, statewide, and national level. Its advocacy work is centered on the experiences of its youth, clients, and staff, and it creates platforms to capture and share those stories so policymakers, community leaders, and supporters understand the human impact behind the policy.

How the pieces fit together

The logic is a continuum: prevent violence where possible, interrupt it when it is imminent, support people after it occurs, and change the policies that shape the conditions in the first place.

What to keep in mind

• It is a community organization, not a government agency. Youth Alive explicitly distinguishes itself from city government and the police, which matters if you are looking for a service that operates independently of those systems.
• Services are described as free. The site states its wraparound services are always free; no pricing or payment details are listed.
• It is Oakland-focused but not Oakland-limited. Programs serve Oakland, while advocacy work extends to the state and national level.
• Some programs have specific entry points. Caught in the Crossfire works through hospital bedside contact, and Pathways serves youth after release — so the route into a program depends on the situation, not a single general intake.

If you want to know more about a specific program, the site's "Our Programs" section links to a dedicated page for each one.

Youth Alive's wraparound services are always free, and the organization describes itself as community-based rather than part of city government or the police. Eligibility is defined by who the programs serve: Oakland teens, survivors of violence, families of homicide victims, and youth returning to the community after release. The sections below break that down by program so you can tell which one fits a given situation.

Is there any cost?

No. Youth Alive states that its wraparound services are always free. The site lists no pricing, fees, or payment platforms, and it does not present itself as a city or police agency — it describes itself as "of and by the community." That framing matters for eligibility: you are not required to go through a government office or a police department to reach these programs.

Who is eligible, by program

What each service actually provides

• Teens on Target trains high school students to teach peers about preventing violence, mediate conflicts, and advocate to elected officials and the public.
• Violence Interrupters navigate tension within the community to extinguish individual and group conflicts.
• Caught in the Crossfire sends Intervention Specialists to meet survivors at the hospital and provide practical and logistical services that support healing, discourage retaliation, and help survivors return to their communities.
• Hometown Heroes Fellowship is a workforce development initiative building the next generation of credible messengers and community leaders.
• Pathways connects at-promise youth with experienced Intervention Specialists for post-release services including educational assistance, legal aid, employment support, mentoring, and life skills training.
• Khadafy Washington Project serves nearly 100% of families of Oakland homicide victims with financial, emotional, and practical support.
• Counseling Services offers healing-centered individual and group counseling for people impacted by trauma and violence.

How to decide whether to reach out

If you are a high school student in Oakland interested in peer education or conflict mediation, Teens on Target is the entry point. If you or someone you know was recently injured by violence, Caught in the Crossfire is designed for the hospital bedside moment. If you have lost a family member to homicide in Oakland, the Khadafy Washington Project is built specifically for that. If you are returning to the community after release and need education, legal aid, employment, or mentoring, Pathways is the match. For trauma and violence impacts more broadly, Counseling Services is open to individuals affected.

Because the site does not publish intake forms, phone numbers, or eligibility paperwork in the material reviewed here, the practical next step is to use the "Learn more" links on each program page or the "Support us" section of the site to find the current contact route. Confirm the specific program before sharing personal details, and ask directly whether your situation fits — the organization's own framing is that it is community-based and separate from city and police channels.