About Kevin

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 thirty years, Kevin provides classes as a consultant via Kevin Grant Consulting, LLC to juvenile youth 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 has been the Violence Prevention Coordinator for the City of Oakland, California since 2006. He led 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 highly impacted by violence. 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, battery, shootings and other violent crimes.

Kevin also provides community-based, entry-level training and employment opportunities for high-risk youth and young adults through programs such as Loved Ones, Midnight Basketball, and other local initiatives. These efforts are designed to support young people who are beginning to move toward a more positive path—offering both motivation and economic stability to help sustain that progress.

Grounded in the belief that we must uplift what is strong within our loved ones rather than focus on what is wrong, participants are connected to meaningful work within their own neighborhoods. Youth are assigned to local recreation centers, where they help maintain parks, or placed with local businesses for a few hours each week. In return, the Loved Ones program provides stipends, reinforcing both responsibility and the value of their contributions.

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 network 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.

Advancing Community Violence Intervention Strategy

We provide relevant, action-oriented violence prevention trainings designed to move the work forward across systems—including federal, state (such as local parole departments), county (including hospital trauma centers and probation departments), and city government agencies (including local police departments), as well as other key law enforcement partners.

Our trainings are highly interactive and include real-time role playing, allowing participants to practice critical decision-making, communication, and intervention strategies in realistic, high-stakes scenarios.

From there, we expand training to include community-based organizations, faith-based institutions, and direct service teams—ultimately supporting broader community collaboration, alignment, and sustained buy-in.

Our approach is deeply data-driven. We use localized data—such as homicides, shootings, highest-risk times and locations, retaliation patterns, and clearance rates—to shape training content, ensuring it is directly relevant to the realities of each community. This same data is used to continuously assess effectiveness, refine strategies, and guide ongoing violence prevention efforts to achieve measurable outcomes.

Our services also include start-up support and full collaborative design, ensuring that each initiative is grounded in partnership, responsiveness, and long-term impact.

These trainings are critical because they build shared understanding, strengthen cross-sector relationships, and equip those closest to the work with practical tools—rooted in real-world data—to prevent violence and create safer, more resilient communities.

Public officials and safety leaders reflect on the real-world impact of Kevin Grant’s work and its role in advancing violence prevention efforts:

Training & Consulting Services

EKG Assessment Tools

From readiness to impact—tools that strengthen the heart of your practice.

PULSE ASSESSMENT TOOL

The Pulse Assessment Tool helps providers pinpoint the life dimensions where a participant may be most vulnerable to gun violence, guiding focused coaching and intervention strategies. Using the results, providers and participants co-create an action plan to reduce immediate risk and strengthen stability.

GROWTH IN PRACTICE

For employers who hire individuals with lived experience, including re-entry from incarceration, recovery from substance use, past trauma, being un-housed, or extended workforce absence - the GnP enables organizations to evaluate candidates holistically, focusing on readiness, resilience, and growth potential rather than past barriers.

A structured interview and onboarding framework designed to assess and strengthen clinicians’ capacity to navigate the relational, cultural, and systemic complexities of community mental health work. By integrating onboarding, training, supervision, and coaching, it supports ongoing development in clinical judgment, systems awareness, and relational accountability to enhance ethical, responsive care.

RELATIONAL READINESS TOOL

Get in touch

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Email

Kevin@ekgtrainings.com