So again, good morning, everyone.

This is the special Joint Health and Public Protection Committee meeting for Thursday, December 18th.

Can we please start with a roll call?

Supervisor Miley, excuse.

Supervisor Tam, excuse.

Supervisor Marquez.

Present.

I just wanted to make a few announcements.

I know that Supervisor Tam will be joining us shortly, and Supervisor Miley is participating remotely.

However, his address was not listed on the agenda, so he's going to be participating as a community member and will be making his comments under public comments.

So again, good morning and welcome to today's special joint health and public protection committee meeting.

I want to begin today's meeting by first acknowledging the many recent tragic events involving gun violence, both locally in Alameda County, specifically impacts to the Skyline High School and Laney College communities, as well as the mass shootings in Stockton, California, and just this weekend at Brown University and Bondy Beach in Australia.

Let us have a moment of silence to honor the victims, including the heartbreaking loss of Coach John Beam, and all those who have been impacted by their loss.

Please join me in a moment of silence.

Thank you.

Today's discussion is more than a look at data, trends, or program outcomes.

At the heart of violence prevention work are real people, including those whose lives have been lost, families and friends with futures that have been forever changed, and neighborhoods which continue to carry lasting pain and trauma.

That is why our approach must be rooted in prevention, healing, and community partnerships.

I want to acknowledge and thank Supervisor Miley for his decades of leadership around these efforts, both at the county and during his time on the Oakland City Council.

Today's meeting focuses on county's violence prevention strategy and efforts through the lens of public health that address violence in all forms.

We will hear from the Alameda County Public Health Department's Office of Violence Prevention, along with community partners, leading innovative preventative focused work across the county.

Over the past several years, Alameda County has made significant investments in a public health approach to violence prevention, including supporting efforts such as hospital-based intervention, mental health supports, community building, relationship violence prevention, and narrative change in partnership with trusted community-based organizations.

Our conversation is especially important right now, given both the recent harm and loss at the local, national, and even international levels, as well as Alameda County's ongoing commitment to address the systemic drivers of health and safety.

This is a policy choice and one that has been reaffirmed both at the ballot box through the 2020 passage of Alameda County Measure C to maintain and protect the availability and accessibility of our regional pediatric safety net services.

And just last month, our board's unanimous support to allocate $3 million annually for the next three years to strengthen countywide violence prevention efforts through grant funding and intervention programs through our public health department.

Thank you to our health committee members, Chair Miley and Supervisor Tam for advancing this increased investment recommendation to the full board.

As the chair of the Public Protection Committee, I share your belief that advancing the safety and well-being of our residents requires continued investment and prevention, innovation, and cross collaboration with all stakeholders, including those internal and external to the county.

Today's presentations will help us better understand how these programs operate on the ground and contribute to a safer, healthier communities across Alameda County.

Given the number of presenters today, I believe we have 12.

I want to ask the speakers to please keep their remarks focused and concise so we can ensure everyone has time to present and the committee members have time for discussion.

I will take public comment at the end of all the presentations.

With that said, this is all an informational items today on the agenda.

The first presenter is through Alameda County Public Health Department Office of Violence Prevention.

I'd like to welcome Anika Shandra, Interim Agency Director of Alameda County Health, and Kimmy Watkins Tart, Director of Alameda County Public Health Department, and Kristen Clopton, Office of Violence Prevention.

Good morning.

Welcome and thank you for your work.

And I believe we do have a PowerPoint presentation.

Welcome, good morning.

All right, thank you.

Good morning, Supervisor, and thank you for having us here today.

My name is Kimmy Watkins Tart, Public Health Director, and so happy to be able to share the work of the new office.

We'll provide some updates on our work to date data at this time as we have it, as well as our data development agenda.

You can go to the next slide.

We'll also spend a fair amount of time on strategies that are operational now in Alameda County and hear from community partners about their work, and we'll wrap up with next steps.

Next slide.

Preventing violence is a public health issue and a public health concern.

It's also consistent with your board's vision for 2036.

Preventing violence is critical to having a safe and livable community, and also deeply connected to having thriving and resilient populations and a vibrant and prosperous economy.

Next slide.

The public health department has led an engaging process to identify population level priorities for our county through our community health needs assessment process and the development of our community health improvement plan.

These priorities were informed by data across our health system, as well as having conversations with residents and organizational stakeholders.

Promoting peaceful families and communities continued to be uplifted as a key priority across Alameda County.

Next slide.

The Office of Violence Prevention was established in 2023, thanks to the commitment support of your board.

Our priorities for the new office were informed from input from community partners, community members, service providers, and county agencies who were already working in the space.

We wanted to ensure that the new office would be additive to what was already happening in our community.

So much work is already going on and was going on at the time.

And we invited our colleagues to share with us what would be most useful as we plan to launch this new effort.

Having an institutional partner that could foster collaboration, strengthen data analysis across our system, build collective capacity and elevate community voices was called out as an imperative.

And while recognizing that violence affects us all and across the lifespan, there was a consistent desire to emphasize supporting youth and young adults.

And now I'd like to turn the presentation over to Kristen Klopton, the Office of Violence Prevention Manager for Public Health.

Thank you.

Welcome, good morning.

Good morning.

Thank you very much, Director Watkins Tart.

So I'm here to talk about our Office of Violence Prevention Program and then also take a look at some of the data related to violence in our community.

Okay.

So I will start with our program focus, which is around data collection, narrative change, advancing best practices, and policy advocacy.

When it comes to data collection, that's primarily making sure that we understand and define the scope of violence in our communities.

For narrative change, it's improving communications on why violence occurs, who it affects, and then the awareness of risk and protective factors for the community members at large.

Advancing best practices, we look at scaling evidence informed prevention and intervention strategies as well as long-term transformational care strategies.

And then finally, with policy advocacy, it's around promoting and supporting community power to address violence and the issues that contribute to violence.

This graphic is what we call a rippling effect of violence, and kind of touched on by your opening remarks, Supervisor Marquez.

When we think about violence, it impacts the health and well-being of the entire community.

So there are impacts for the individual, whether that be injury or loss.

There are ramifications for family and friends in terms of the loss and the grief of experienced violence for their loved one.

And then there's also an impact to community, which is the emotional trauma and potentially reduced economic mobility.

And all of these things in concert speak to why we need violence prevention efforts that include a cross-sectoral collaboration and approach.

So public health is involved in violence prevention as well as our public safety entities and our community partners, of course, and community members.

Each of these areas was informed by the 2021 community health needs assessment that was conducted and also feeds into the community health improvement plan that Kimmy briefly touched on.

I will note that in early next year we will have a new release of the community health needs assessment, but community safety is continuously raised as an issue of concern for residents.

I'm going to spend a little time looking at violence within Alameda County and exploring the current data and trends.

Heading into this next section of the presentation, I would like to recognize the impact in center equity.

When we're looking at data, the initial data that we have here for you today is on mortality, but that is not the only thing that we are looking at from a violence prevention standpoint.

When we're looking at mortality, we recognize that the behind each data point is a life loss to violence and then the pain experienced by loved ones and the wider community trauma.

We hope to honor those affected by illustrating the scope of violence within our county.

So to start, we are taking a look at homicide trends over the last 20 years.

And so on this graph, you will see both Alameda County, the United States, and California.

And then we also try to call attention to Oakland and Hayward for a particular reason.

This figure depicts the homicide rate per 100,000 people over time based on those communities.

Because confidentiality is important, we only show trends for cities or places with enough data to produce multi-year rates.

So even though Hayward is depicted on this graphic, it is not second in terms of the community that experiences the most homicides.

Oakland does lead in terms of homicides experienced throughout the county, and then Hayward, I believe, is fourth, roughly behind San Leandro and unincorporated areas of Ashland and Cherryland.

But Hayward has sufficient data to be able to show a trend and see kind of throughout the last three years, homicide rates have risen within that community in particular.

Again, with Alameda County, the United States, and California depicted here.

Alameda County, which is the blue line on this graphic, shows that we have lower rates of suicide than California or the US, and we attribute those lower levels to levels of firearm ownership, and then the county being largely urban.

Rurality is a concern when we look at suicide.

So you'll note on this graphic that we have Berkeley and Livermore represented, and they are the city's places with the highest rates of suicide that can be reliably displayed over time.

So it is a concerning issue.

And recently, within the last three or so years, the suicide rate has risen within the city of Berkeley.

This next graphic is domestic violence death, and it's based on reviews done by the domestic violence review team, where annually a team of cross-department stakeholders, looks at violence, violent deaths related to DV that have occurred within the county.

So you'll note that within the last three years, these numbers have risen based on the cases that have been reviewed by the DVFRT, domestic violence review team.

In 2024, the 23 domestic violence deaths were the highest since 2017.

And this number or this increase was largely driven by a number of multi-fatality incidents.

One that involved a family of five, and I believe the others involved murder suicide, which impacts multiple people as a part of those events.

The last new graph that I will show here today is reported hate crimes from 2015 to 2024.

And this is hate crimes that are reported by law enforcement agencies within Alameda County to the California Department of Justice.

The California Department of Justice notes that we should be mindful or be cautious when making comparisons across jurisdictions due to the different sizes of the law enforcement agencies that are fielding these reports and due to different training where hate crimes are identified as a particular thing.

For us, we look at hate-motivated violence, and so we're still exploring avenues to gather some of that data because what a community member experiences as hate is not often a classic definition, or may not be a classic definition by law enforcement standards.

I bring this graph back to the board today just to again share a look at firearm homicide within the county over the last 20 years.

And on this graph, we tried to note in terms of the peaks and valleys, the times when community violence intervention was online and able to help address some of the violence that community members were experiencing.

So this graph we provide just to note that the pressures of high cost of living and the stark inequities in wealth and poverty make Alamina County vulnerable to community violence.

And it's truly when we have community violence intervention that is led by partners such as those that you'll hear from today, where we start to see some decreases in firearm homicide.

Any disruption to community violence intervention or any economic stability that we may experience as a community leaves us vulnerable to increases in gun violence and all types of violence.

So I will note that the funding you all are providing for Measure C is going to be significantly helpful and impactful to our community-based organizations that do this work.

This slide is intended to touch on our data development agenda and noting that in addition to what's currently available, the mortality data that I shared with you all.

We also have hospitalization and emergency department visits based on violence.

We also have violent crimes data and youth exposure to violence based on the California Healthy Kids Survey.

All of these data references sources are going to be key in terms of being able to look at this problem ongoing.

Things that are in the works for development include real-time violence-related injury and mortality data.

We're working on a community-wide survey on safety and violence as part of our narrative change efforts.

And then we also are designing a public violence prevention data dashboard, which will provide more data and information to community.

The last column here on our future development, we're working on opportunities to improve hate-motivated violence monitoring, and then detailed analysis and circumstances surrounding violence incidents.

So we've discussed with partners and amongst our department, being able to bring online a fatality review team that looks specifically at violent death and tries to identify or tries to understand the underlying causes that contribute to those deaths, where systems and services could have been engaged to help reduce those deaths, and identifying strategies to address the gaps that are experienced.

So I'm going to go into this next section on strategies to reduce violence, and then we'll also have an opportunity to hear from our community partners.

So this is provided to give an overview of OVP, our Office of Violence Prevention's funded activities.

We have 14 grantees that are still in place, utilizing 3.84 million in American Rescue Plan Act dollars.

And so the services that they provide fall into three categories.

We have community violence prevention and intervention services that impacts nine grantees.

We have violence prevention, professional healing and wellness, which is one grantee, and then narrative change, which is four grantees.

Additionally, over time, we've also done a grant for hospital-based violence intervention services, and that's in partnership with the emergency medical services under Alameda County Health.

And then we also previously had a youth suicide reporting and rapid response pilot, which was four grantees, and that was funded through the California Department of Public Health.

So among our 14 based grants for ARPA, these are the list of organizations that are currently working with us, and their contracts will continue through October or November of 2026 while we have ARPA funding available.

So before bringing up some of our community partners, I want to take a moment and note that there are community safety narratives that we are particularly tuned into.

Some of those were touched on in the Vision 2036 graphic, and then also our CHIP priority of promoting peaceful families and communities.

Within the public health department, as part of our effort to do results-based accountability, we have a set of department results and indicators that we are keyed in on.

And one of those results is here for you today, which is to ensure that all Alameda County residents live in healthy communities.

So violence prevention programming at the community level is essential to reducing violence, improving community safety, and uplifting the health and well-being of Alameda County residents.

The collective impact that our prevention intervention and transformation efforts supports will contribute to healthier communities where residents feel like they can thrive and live well.

These are the coordinated approaches to reducing violence, which I touched briefly on.

Violence prevention is to stop violence before it occurs by addressing the underlying drivers of harm.

We have violence intervention, which is to address immediate risks to prevent violence from escalating or recurring.

And then we also have community transformation, which focuses on long-term community-centered strategies.

And so each of the partners that we have here today will in part touch on these categories.

So I am briefly going to pause and start the part of our discussion that allows our CBO partners to come and present.

And so first, around violence prevention, I would like to bring up Destiny Arts Center, for which Mike Lee, the Deputy Director, and Tess Phi Tuckaloo, the martial arts director, will speak to you about their program.

Thank you.

Welcome.

You could please just introduce yourself and welcome.

Sure, good morning.

My name is Mike Lee.

I'm the deputy director at Destiny Arts Center, located here in Oakland.

And thank you for the opportunity to allow us to share Destiny Arts Center's work here in the community in Alameda County.

Destiny's mission is to inspire and ignite social change through the arts.

Destiny, we've been rooted here in Oakland for 37 years using movement arts as a frontline violence prevention strategy.

Our work is grounded in the belief that when young people have safe spaces to express themselves, build identity, and feel belonging.

Violence is interrupted before it escalates.

We are proud and thankful to partner with you all Alameda County to support our prevention, healing, and long-term community safety efforts.

So Destiny was founded in 1988 in direct response to youth violence in Oakland.

Our earliest program centered martial arts, not as a sport, but as a tool for discipline, emotional regulation, confidence, and nonviolent conflict resolution.

From the beginning, we understood violence prevention as a skill building process, not just crisis response.

This work led to the development of our core philosophy where art plus belonging plus identity equals violence prevention.

At the heart of Destiny's work is our Warriors Code, which are our core values that we live by love, care, respect, responsibility, honor, and peace.

These are not abstract values, they are practiced daily in classrooms, studios, and in our community spaces where we offer programming.

The Warriors Code serves as a shared behavioral framework for youth staff and families, creating consistency and safety.

By centering healing, accountability, and expression, we help young people replace cycles of harm with cycles of care, which is foundational the long-term violence prevention.

And now I'll turn it over to my colleague Tess Fai to go into more program overview.

Thank you, Mike.

My name is Tess Fai.

I'm the Martial Arts Director at Destiny Art Center.

Our program overview highlights some of them.

Our traditional martial arts trainings integrate with creative movement techniques to engage youth holistically, meaning young people are learning traditionally how to embody or cultivate skills that gives them a structure or a quality of how to move in life.

It has also healing-centered approach focusing on trauma awareness and youth empowerment to foster resilience and growth.

Violence prevention through skill building, leadership development, and positive peer connections, programs delivered in school and community space throughout Oakland.

Where we serve is the age from locations are from 3 to 24, primarily in East and West Oakland, focusing on neighborhoods with high needs.

The majority of youth of color includes Black, Latin, and API communities representing 90% of BIPAC participants.

And the mentorship of impact we have is over 75% of participants with mentors by the end of their first year, and supporting positive development and community connections.

We have is building positive identities and belongs through healing centered environments and social emotional emotional skill development to equip use with resilience before challenging arise.

Intervention side, we provide providing trauma, responsive instructions and violent communication trainings, and a strong mentoring relationships to support youth during moments of conflict and stress.

It's a powerful tool for community agencies and personal empowerment.

Some of the key aspects, 100% of teaching arts are trained in violent communication and non-violent communication and trauma-informed and healing centered practices, ensuring supportive and healing environment for youth.

75% of the youth participants are matched with mentors by the end of their first year, fostering strong support of leadership, leadership guidance and guidance.

Also use report significant improvement and self-regulation, confidence, and connections, demonstration through survey and program assessments.

Participants' experience in successive stories, here's some of the educator's feedback.

Students show improved self-regulation and emotional control, increase self-awareness observed among youth participants, positive behavioral change noted in school and community settings, use demonstrates greater confidence in managing stress, why this matters, helping youths cope with the stress and trauma effectively, build healthy peer relationship and community skills, and trap cycles of violence and harm within communities, create pathways for youth, leadership, and community agencies.

From what they learn in our center or in the community, be able to bring it to the community and share with their peers, having in a positive reactions or responses based on what they see from their peers and be able to promote that.

Our community alignments and participants, we collaborate closely with Oakland Unified School Districts and Alameda County Community Health Services to create our programs into school and community settings.

Programs are hosted in schools, recreational center and parks and youth hubs, fostering trusted healing-centered space for youth and families in Oakland.

Programs rooted in the Warriors' Code, love, care, respect, responsibility, honor, and peace is fostering resilience and empowerment, creative use development framework centered with use, voice, and self-expression as catalysts for social change, communities to racial equity and cultural responsiveness, ensure inclusive healing environment for BIPAC youth, movement arts provide pathways for leadership, advocacy and community agencies, transforming individual and collective future, as trauma-informed healing-centered practice, supports holistic youth well-being, building social and emotional skills, and interrupting sexual harm.

One of the examples I would want to share is as I also personally work at the center and school communities.

Thank you, Mr.

Tequilo and Mr.

Lee.

Thank you for the work you're doing.

I do have a question, if you don't mind.

Destiny Arts has been working with youth in Oakland for decades using movement arts as prevention.

What have you found to be the most effective in building long-term resilience and helping young people navigate conflict without violence?

The way we actually build is really have three theories.

How do we have a space for young people that they have a place they feel they belong?

They're safe.

When teachers are able to, or we are able to sense and understand what is in the body, how is the body holding trauma or um the world view rather than giving information in their head?

How do we place it in their body that sustains that they can cultivate and have a different possibilities of themselves?

How do they build that is organic that they train through their tissue and become and be able to live that life?

Which part of the practice, for example, we have the five fingers of violence prevention.

How do we how do they they learn from inside out to be able to see themselves differently than how is how they are received or see themselves?

And not just to stay into a prevention or intervention, how do we uphold a path that is a positive positive future or possibilities for them inside of what we give?

For example, we have young people from myself have been in one school for nine years that I'm able to see from pre-K and see their trajectory of their growth.

And I have students that I see in college now and be able to come back and work.

And by inspiring one or two and helping them embody the way in which they can have it and know it, but actually take action that makes them see themselves and the world in a different way that can actually build an exemplary for other young people to see and follow.

And that's how we hold it.

Thank you.

And then the warrior code is that used to manage like conflict resolution.

Do you call out when you see negative behavior like bullying or just how is that being addressed as well?

Not only they see that, but also we're like how is it living inside of them and how do they live it?

Each warrior's code in martial arts.

We have, for example, have love.

How do you stand in your dignity?

How would you be able to feel that and also how do you express it?

At school, at the center with your peers, every week we ask where's an example of you being in that modeling that embodiment, care.

So each move, each martial arts move has embedded not just the words, it's action tied with it.

And also we have every year they will set up a goal.

What is your personal goal, and what is a skill goal you want to build?

And we have assessment structure where at the end of the year the peers, teachers, and family and themselves will be able to look and see here's where I was.

We even take videos for them to see after a year.

So each warrior's code has values, not only the action they can take and can they embody that and live it.

That's wonderful.

Thank you so much for your tremendous work.

Um Supervisor Tam, do you have any questions?

Nothing, okay.

Thank you so much.

I will briefly come up to introduce our next um set of speakers.

This will focus on violence intervention efforts.

Um, and so from Roots Community Health, we're gonna have Dr.

Noha Abalada and Jamaica Sowell come.

Um, and then followed by Youth Alive, where Dr.

Joseph Griffin will come.

Thank you, good morning and welcome.

And are we at the end?

Okay.

Okay.

Um, good morning, Chair and members of the Board of Supervisors.

Dr.

Noha and I want to begin by expressing our sincere appreciation uh for the opportunity here today.

We're grateful for the time and the attention.

We'd also like to extend our thanks to the Alameda County Public Health Department, Office of Violence Prevention for inviting Roots Community Health to participate.

Um, Dr.

Noha and I are here today to share how our violence reduction work is rooted in community voice, including our 40 by 40 place-based strategy and community data trust, and how these structures guide real-time priorities such as gun violence reduction, behavioral health supports, and neighborhood safety.

So Roots Community Health was started in 2008 with two volunteers in a single room, Dr.

Noha Avalada and Nurse Ophelia Long.

We have grown since then from having two individuals volunteering their time to an organization with 200 plus employees and 10 different sites.

We exist because our founding CEO, Dr.

Noha Abalada, saw how health disparities and the social determinants of health, specifically in East Oakland, have disproportionately impacted by an equitable distribution of resources and good and poor health outcomes in East Oakland to both low-income black and brown residents.

This slide goes over our 40 by 40 place-based strategy, which is in the heart of East Oakland, which is really roughly about 40 by 40 block area.

It's really 35 by like 45, but it's from Seminary Avenue to the Oakland San Leonro border, from MacArthur Boulevard to the Bay, and it's still home to approximately 30,000 people of African descent.

And so this area is specifically informed by data showing the poorest health outcomes for black and brown residents in Oakland.

So I just want to take a moment just to say this is full circle moment for me because I haven't been in this building since these pictures were taken.

And this is just demonstrating how we walked from Lake Merritt here to be in this room and advocate for the Office of Violence Prevention to be housed in the public health department and to actually speak to you all to declare violence as a public health emergency.

So I feel pretty privileged to be here to be able to speak to you about our work, as it has definitely had some positive outcomes in securing funding and launching the Office of the Violence Prevention and also having a gun violence dashboard that's in progress.

Thank you for your advocacy and for being trailblazers.

Well, that was alongside our community residents.

They were on these steps too, and in here.

So that's that goes out to them.

And so this slide is basically stating how there was a request from the community stakeholders to the Board of Supervisors back in 2022 to call for funding for public health monitoring, the Office of Violence Prevention and basically being able to have the ability to share that public data.

4.5 million was granted for that.

There was call for funding for behavioral health and substance use services.

15.5 million was called, but it's yet to be unfunded, but it would include care management and navigation services.

One of the things that we do want to highlight, which I think Kristen also highlighted was the Measure C funding.

We just want to be very appreciative for being able to have that funding available because we know that it will support our work and others' works who are in this office to basically do that work even further.

And this particular grant is Kristen said, we are doing intensive life navigation for those who have been involved in violence.

And so, interesting enough, our original contract or grant with OVP basically wanted those individuals who are 40 and over, but because the data showed that there were still individuals who were 35 and older, they changed our contract language so that there wouldn't be any type of shortcomings with that particular population through the city of Oakland and the Department of Violence Prevention, they go up to 35 with their work.

So we did not want to have any type of gap in how we are providing services to this vulnerable population.

And so this is a comprehensive strategy that we at Roots include.

And so with our client engagement, we have been able to collaborate with Highland Hospital to identify eligible participants and develop a system through which to begin the referrals and ensuring a clear and streamlined entry point into those services.

As it relates to assigning an intensive life coach or a health navigator, they basically personalize a plan, a full plan of care and connections to resources.

They create a reliable point of contact.

They can turn to at any time for continued support as it relates to our clients who are basically being navigated by the navigator.

There's a comprehensive needs assessment that is done, and this is conducted through evaluation to understand each client's needs, their health, their psychological and socioeconomic needs, and this allows for a more holistic picture of their circumstances.

There's a personalized care plan, which is crafted, and it's tailored to address specific challenges and goals, ensuring each client receives targeted and meaningful assistance.

We offer trauma informed services, providing specialized counseling and care management focused on trauma recovery, helping clients heal while building their coping skills and their resilience.

There are resources and linkages, which establish connections to vital community resources and facilitating seamless service transitions, and this ensures that clients can access the support systems that they need.

And what's really important, all of these are important, but also having in mind to have a safety and risk reduction plan, and so implementing the safety plan and violence interruption strategies, it basically mitigates the risk, it promotes stability, and reduces the likelihood of future harm.

I'm gonna pass it over to Dr.

Noha.

Can I speak from here?

One more.

Okay.

Good morning, supervisors, and thank you so much for the opportunity to be before you today.

I just wanted to highlight something that Jamaica alluded to earlier around the age range that we chose, and part of that was looking at the data in partnership with public health department and seeing that the age is creeping up of folks who are involved in gun violence and wanting to make sure that there's an intervention tailored around that group, and also that we understand what's going on.

And so you'll see a theme throughout the rest of this around being very data informed and community informed and through our conversations with Youth Alive as well as Highland, really saying where can we come in and fill a gap and pilot this to focus on this population and get a better understanding of what is going on, whether it is around unmet behavioral health needs or other types of dynamics that may be going on.

And so that was kind of the genesis for that.

So we really just want to appreciate the Office of Violence Prevention for both helping to inform strategies but also for being really flexible and dynamic in this and understanding we obviously don't have all the answers, and so some of this work is going to be iterative and it truly has been excellent partnership in that regard.

And we can, I think we can go to the next slide.

So navigation for roots is really central to our entire model of providing what we call whole health.

So navigators are actually the largest job class at roots that makes up about 25% of our staffing.

And Mr.

Skia Mohammed is our director of navigation services here with us today, and we consider violence intervention navigation as a specialized type of navigation.

So those navigators not only are trained in addressing all of the social determinants of health and motivational interviewing and non-judgmental communication and meeting people where they are, but then they get the additional training specific to violence intervention.

And it's called intensive because it truly can involve speaking with their members every day if that's what's needed in order to help support them to make a different decision about how they're going to address a conflict that may have arisen.

And so these are folks who are from the community who share lived experiences with the panel of people that they are navigating, but they are also trained extensively, both in a classroom setting as well as hands-on and working with very seasoned navigators on site to really learn how to be a navigator, and they are full-time benefited employees and are very important to our model.

So they're, you know, like I say, a key, the largest job class more than doctors' medical assistants, and things like that, because we recognize just how important it is when we're engaging marginalized communities to be able to have people who look like them or from the community who understand them, but also can link them into the things we know that they may need, like behavioral health care, and they can lower that stigma and that barrier to get folks in.

Oh, yeah, I check in with Ramel all the time.

Come on, let's go talk to her male.

Um, so they have behavioral health providers that they can connect with, and it really lowers that stigma and that barrier, and they also serve as that main point person, texting, phone calls, meeting in the community, going to court, going to probation visits, and so they really are that main point person for their members.

Next slide.

So I probably touched on a lot of this already, but this is integrated where navigators basically have access to all the aspects that we offer at roots, which I think is really important because healthcare tends to be a little siloed and not very accessible for a lot of people, and a lot of our community have actually been traumatized in healthcare settings before.

So it's really important that folks feel comfortable, that they know they're not going to be judged, they know that they can be treated well, and but sometimes it might take multiple visits with a navigator to convince them that that is going to be the case and to actually get them engaged in care.

So this is a really key part of our model.

And the whole entire work of navigators is to meet with members and talk to them about their goals.

And there is an assessment process that goes on that gauges where people are from crisis to secure in multiple domains of life.

So, unlike traditional healthcare, it's just not about do you have a disease or a sickness or not?

That's one of 10 domains of life that we're looking at, and others include like social support, mobility, um, your social networks, substance use challenges, behavioral health, and uh and a whole host of other things.

And the goal is to help folks move from crisis to secure, but it's not about what our priorities are, right?

I might want you to get in, get your physical, right?

But if a person is sleeping in their car and they're dealing with a situation where they're thinking about retaliating, then we are maybe going to address getting them into a safe place, getting them linked up with employment or employment services, getting them reunited with family, and so it really is about co-creating those plans with them.

Next slide.

So I touched on I think all of these things already, and I'll just kind of underscore that this is integrated again across all of our services.

So this could be even parents, how to, you know, parenting, it could be around getting into substance use medication assisted treatment and basically improving outcomes overall.

Next slide.

So our outcome so far, at least through September 30th, when we create the slide, is that all of the participants have received a health care follow-up plan.

All of them have reported understanding their health care rights and resources.

I really cannot emphasize enough how important this is.

What we see a lot in our community is a sense of disempowerment and not having efficacy when their own care and just feeling like they're just gonna go when they're on their when they when they absolutely have to, and even then that they're not in charge of their own health.

So this is something we emphasize a lot is that people actually have self-efficacy around their rights and that they have the right to access health care.

And as we move into this new reality that we're in, where people are losing their benefits and they will continue to unfortunately be faced with barriers to health care.

We want to make sure that front and center people understand they have a right to this because if they don't understand that, then nothing else is going to happen after that.

100% of our participants have received a personalized recovery plan, and 95% have not engaged in retaliatory violence.

Of course, we want to see that be a hundred percent, but we know that within this population, we're pretty we're pretty proud of the 95% and are gonna want to strive to get that to 100%.

Next slide.

So I will hand it back to Jamaica on an example of a success story.

Um, so we have a client who is currently being navigated, um, who unfortunately was shot five times, but has survived.

He's a 40-year old African American male who has been experiencing homelessness for several years.

Um, we're happy to report that he has successfully connected to employment, has maintained consistent work, and has recently obtained stable housing.

And this is just one of many stories.

Mr.

Mohammed, I don't know if you have another one that you want to know who we appropriate.

Yeah, these there's plenty of these.

Yes, and obviously these are some of our community members who are.

On just get closer, maybe.

Oh, get closer.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, I just wanted to underscore the fact that this is this is a perfect example, this individual because this is a segment of our community that often is not understood, is marginalized, is ignored, is demonized.

And we've also seen that guy gun violence in the encampments and among people who are in house is increasing, and this should be an area of great concern to all of us in the county, because that is unfortunately a challenge that's also increasing.

And so getting an understanding of what is needed in this population and also being able to have success, I think is a big uh plus around being able to work with the Office of Violence Prevention, because as we mentioned, when it comes to cities and their violence prevention, it really is very focused on some of the gang violence, and not all violence is necessarily going to be gang violence.

We want to make sure that we had a good understanding of what some of the other drivers are and some of the other interventions.

And this particular slide just highlights, you know, one of the quotes that Dr.

Noha always hones in on us is Roots has always been of the community, by the community, and for the community.

And so as she goes into some of what we're doing as it relates to community-driven priorities, this is something that when you when she starts talking, you'll understand why.

This is very like taken to heart with all of us at Roots.

Thank you.

So we have a number of examples of how community really leads and helps to drive our priorities.

And so starting off with internal to roots, we hire from the community.

We are definitely of the community.

And so our staff are part of all of the planning and how we deliver our work and what they hear every day from the people that they're working with is always lifted up.

So I know that in healthcare, oftentimes, like we'll be in an exam room hearing all these things and learning all these things, but we just got to go to the next patient.

And we don't use that knowledge to inform what our upstream approaches will be.

So that is where Roots has said we can't do that because if we're working at the end of the stream, we're learning a lot, and we need to make sure that we're taking those learnings and lifting them up to inform some of our neighborhood level priorities and some of our upstream priorities.

So internal to roots as it relates to violence prevention, we have something called a community healing steering committee.

And this is really where some of the initial ideas around gun violence as a public health crisis came about because what we were seeing was starting to feel like something we were not sure we could ever get ahead of.

A crisis would happen, um, community members would be affected, all the good organizations here would mobilize to go address it, but it's happened now, and now you have a whole generation of young people that will never go back to that park that may be scared to go to sports practice because of what happened there, um, and a loss of some of the community assets that we have.

And so we felt like this is truly a community health crisis because it's happening at the neighborhood level.

It's not just about the two people that were involved in the violence.

And a lot of this came out of internally listening to our navigators saying something's different.

We're seeing more gun violence that's not necessarily gang related.

It's interpersonal conflicts that are just escalating and people have access to guns.

So something that used to be a fight after school because you disrespected my sister or whatever is now turning into gun violence.

And so a lot of the efforts that we did on the community level with our neighbors start with that expertise that is the lived expertise of our staff and the people that they're speaking with every single day.

We also create space within the community for all kinds of community members, from young people to our elders to be able to engage and lift up what are their concerns.

And so some examples of that are young people's kickback Fridays that we have in Deep East Oakland, our community safekeeping meetings where we invite folks who attend the neighborhood crime prevention councils and other resident advisory councils, and our own people's advisory council of the 40 by 40.

So these are all residents in Deep East Oakland because we need to hear from them.

The data sometimes lags, and the data often encodes the biases that we continue to see over and over again.

So we feel really strongly that we need ground level data to fill in some of those blanks and to help contextualize some of what we may be seeing in the community.

And so there has been a really critical, I think, feedback loop through this process and through what we call the community data trust and learning system.

Next slide.

So sorry for this busy slide about our learning system, but it really does take all of us.

And so we have, and we're really, really pleased to say that the Office of Violence Prevention has been very integral as it relates to community violence as our first use case for the 40 by 40 learning system.

So this really is in essence, just to keep it simple is community members lifting up what are their concerns, what are their priorities, and what are their questions?

And they have a lot of questions.

And a lot of times we're going back to help find answers.

That may mean inviting Chief Holly Joshi from the Department of Violence Prevention to come and answer the questions directly with community.

That may mean us going to Kristen in the Office of Violence Prevention to ask for some data or some graphs or things like that.

They've also come and present the Office of Violence Prevention came and presented their report as well to community members, and it keeps it the cycle keeps continuing where more questions come up, and then they have ideas, ideas for either implementation, ideas how maybe we can do things better, or ideas about what do we need to advocate for?

Maybe there's something that we need to advocate for when they find answers to some of the questions that they may have.

And so this is something that is ongoing, and we have applied to violent community violence first because that was the first priority that the residents lifted up.

Next slide.

And here are some of the other priorities, and these are essentially in order.

So gun violence, behavioral health resources and support, and that does include amongst our homeless community, traffic and pedestrian safety, and then illegal dumping and neighborhood beautification.

So these are top priorities that the community has lifted up.

Next slide.

Okay, I just I think the last thing I maybe want to say is that we are really in deep appreciation for the creation of the Office of Violence Prevention.

It is so important that we are looking at violence through a public health lens and not just through an enforcement lens.

And so this is so critical for that reason.

I also think we are at a critical juncture with all of the changes that are happening with Medi-Cal coverage, with access to food and some just basic stabilizers that we've been able to count on that we that we may not be able to count on anymore, and add to that what is happening with proposition one and some of the losses that we're gonna have on the side of behavioral health, especially as it relates to prevention and earlier intervention.

I think we're really concerned.

We know that the Office of Violence Prevention can't do it all and can't do it all alone, but I think we need to be really thoughtful about how we may be losing ground in other areas and how we need to ensure that we maintain a focus on community safety and community healing because without that we will continue to see the disparities widen.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr.

Apolleto and Jamika.

I really appreciate the presentation, the work and the fact that it's grounded in community.

Thank you for uplifting those voices and having them at the table.

Just help me understand the navigation work sounds critical.

Um, does it obviously presuming it varies per individual?

But can you kind of give us a sense?

Do you typically work with someone six months to three years?

Like what's the typical range?

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, that's a great question.

It really depends on the type of navigation, and sometimes people will graduate from one type of navigation to another, so there's some that are very much more intensive, and once they've achieved all of their goals and they can graduate into just regular primary care, they may still be seeing a behavioral provider, and we are a primary care medical home.

So I would say it's probably an average of about one year for in the violence intervention space, and definitely a SKIO, jump in if um you wanted to add anything.

Um, and so, but everyone, you know, it's like everyone is so different that it really does depend sometimes.

And then sometimes people may improve and then have you know an instance where they need to come back into something more intensive.

So we do have a number of different types of navigation for folks with serious mental illness, for example.

So and people don't just fall into one area.

So sometimes we may have someone who does have complex medical issues and needs help with in the violence prevention space.

But what we see more often than not is that most of the people that were that we are serving in violence intervention navigation currently don't have a number of medical conditions and things like that, other than maybe the gunshot wound and the and the rehab and pain management from that, um, and then behavioral health issues, and so this is a group that tends to otherwise fall through the gaps, right?

Because they don't qualify for more like enhanced care management that someone with complex medical needs might have.

And so this is kind of a really critical population that does tend to get marginalized and pushed to like fall through the gaps, um, and then once they're incarcerated now they become eligible for something.

So that's really what we're also trying to prevent.

But I would say it is like a nine-month to a year would probably be an average for this particular population, and then after that they could go into more of a general type of navigation.

Um, and presuming it's majority men, but what are the statistics for women?

The women are increasing.

We've actually brought on um women navigators because of that reason, and so when we first started this work um years ago, it was all then.

Um we are seeing uh more young women um involved as well.

Okay, Mohammed Director of Navigation Services at uh at roots.

Um I guess going to the um the success story.

The interesting thing about that is that gentleman has brought in family members.

I'm originally um almost 70 years old, I've been in this nonprofit about 50 years now.

Um what I noticed in Oakland is people from one end of Oakland to the other really know each other well, and the family influence is really, really deep.

Sometimes I mentioned to co-workers like, wow, you guys know everybody.

But anyway, so it's family influence is important.

Um, years ago, I saw a lot of violence around intimate partner and someone's girlfriend being mad at somebody else and somebody getting shot at and whatnot.

So we immediately uh started to bring in more females into our violence prevention programs and another thing at roots, nobody goes away.

San Francisco, people tend to move around a lot, but in Oakland, again, that family influence, that closeness, uh, roots.

You may you may be in one program for a year to 18 months, and then you move to another program to that interview uh determines that hey, you know, I'm good right now, I will contact you if I feel I need your services, but we have such uh so many services and so robust that folks uh are kind of always at root, and so that's what's uh uh that's a good thing.

And again, that's new to me.

I mean, I've been here 11 years, but uh that's a good thing because of that family influence and that closeness and open one end of Oakland to the other from the 580 freeway to the 880s is really really close.

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing that.

Supervisor Tim.

Thank you, Chair Marquez, and thank you very much for your presentation.

Um, we obviously hear a lot about this through the health committee and um Dr.'s closing statements about HR one and impacts with Medical, food security, Prop One, things that we're trying to sort through with Measure C are all very much a part of this discussion.

So it's more important than ever now to be able to braid funding and leverage funding, and so the work that you have done is is very impressive when it comes to bridging silos with the different types of services.

So I I know you did uh a place study with the 4540 or area, which I think Oakland Thrives also uh provides a lot of funding and support, and so I I'm trying to understand the sustainability in terms of uh getting support from Oakland Thrives as well, and also how that would integrate into some of the work the county's doing, for example, with the African American wellness center and how it goes beyond just the 40 by 40 area, because um we're looking at countywide um services, but we're also mindful of the fact that we need to understand like where some of these uh preventions would have the most impact because we we know countywide that uh violence is the leading cause of death among the youth.

Uh, we just need to find out what do people necessarily just go to one place or do they service offered uh in a place, even if it's not in their neighborhood, can they go somewhere else to get the services?

Yeah, thank you for the question.

There's um there's no doubt in my mind that we need more, right?

We need more low barrier points of access to care for a number of different things, whether it be walk-in crisis stabilization, whether it be sobering centers, um, and the police officers need somewhere else to take people besides jail, and they want that.

Um, we know that because they, you know, sometimes bring folks to us to be able to help you know stabilize the situation, and so I would say um all of that is needed.

Of course, um, within the 40 by 40 in East Oakland is where we have the what the city calls the highest stressor beats.

Um, so the top several of them are in the 40 by 40 area.

Um, the concentration of gun violence um is in that area of East Oakland, but obviously there's other pockets um, you know, in Oakland and across the county where we're also dealing with community gun violence, and so I think we need more of all of the above, and I think the key really is um bricks and mortars where people have a low barrier to access, and then as well as for other modalities like intervention, people have to go to where it's happening and we have to be able to show up, and so we need all of those levels of care.

I think the big concern for us right now that we're looking at is what is coming with HR one and the fact that the population that is called like the expansion population of Medi-Cal, which was mostly men, um, but able-bodied so-called able-bodied adults without dependents.

This is the group where it was life-changing to have the affordable care act bring them into coverage, and has really helped relieve pressure on our hospitals and our emergency departments and all of that, and it feels like we're gonna go right back to a pre-Affordable Care Act um time because much of that population is going to lose their coverage between the frequent redeterminations and having to prove that you're working 80 hours a month.

And remember that before the Affordable Care Act, we didn't have 5,000 people sleeping on the streets in Oakland alone, and so the fact that this is happening at a time where we have so many people unhoused, and the fact that the amount of gun violence that's occurring among the homeless population is also increasing, and just even in terms of the share of gun violence um fatalities.

Um, all of this to me is a recipe that we are heading into some pretty challenging times, and we'll need to be thinking innovatively about how we bring all the different resources to bear.

And so I think CalAIM is kind of one of the probably bright spots in all of this where it's a recognition by our state that it takes more than doctors um and medications to address wellness, and it is attempting to cover other things, um, but it's never quite enough, and there always is going to need to be support, especially for those points of access, like I mentioned, where they're low barrier, um, where people might need more like um not acute care, maybe subacute care, or maybe just some respite.

We know just like Mr.

Mohammed just mentioned at roots, a lot of times people just come just to be there.

They don't have somewhere else to go.

They may be on the edge of a crisis and they want to see a familiar face.

So they may be just sitting in our courtyard like every day, um, or coming to Welcome Wednesday just to get a meal and to be able to see a behavioral health provider, and that low barrier access to care is so critical, but it is way too often unfunded because the lower the barrier, the less likely you are to get reimbursed for something.

And so I think that is where um different initiatives like Oakland Thrives as well as the funding through the OVP helps fill some of the gaps because they basically say, you know, if you can bill, then that's something that we will do, and that's something that we also report.

Um it's interesting that you mentioned um Oakland Thrive Supervisor Tam because we actually just reported to the governance team yesterday that this particular grant from the Office of Violence Prevention was something that allowed us to basically not spend those dollars from Oakland Thrives and to be able to use those to expand or to do other things, and so the public-private partnership and leveraging public dollars and braiding funding are all really important and of I think of critical importance to roots.

That's how we have started from the very beginning, not as an FQHC, because we set out and said we know that clinic is important, but there's a lot of other sectors that we need to be tapping into from workforce to social services and the jails and others where we know our people are, and so we kind of started with well, what do people need to be well, and then how are we going to pay for it?

So, this whole idea of how do we preserve those less restrictive dollars and be able to use those for other things is something that is of utmost importance to us, and so that is something that we always lift up whenever we have the opportunity.

I appreciate that.

Um the community data trusts and learning system, what can be captured in that where uh because uh the hard part for the county, and I'm sure for you as well, is when we um prevent something from happening, it doesn't happen, right?

So, how do we capture it?

And and will this um data trust and learning system help along those lines rather than basically taking information about intake and what was treated, what the diagnostics are.

Yeah, it's such a great question.

That's exactly the kind of thing that I think we're grappling with right there at the community data trust level, and and yes, I think the answer is yes, we will be able to because what we are basically able to capture is what are we not collecting in terms of the data, right?

And so they're able to look at some of the big data that we might get in partnership with the OVP or the DVP, and but to your point, you can't see something that didn't happen, and even when you see increases or decreases, you can't always, you know, be able to identify why that's happening, especially in the context of rapid gentrification, right?

Because your baseline is shifting as you are trying to understand the data.

And we also are very mindful and want to be cautious and have the community drive what data is shared.

So we have actually monthly conversations with the Cape Unit, the public health department, because sometimes we're lifting up things that could have unintended consequences if we were shared them, right?

If you show where the concentration of something is happening, we don't want to then impact property values or otherwise negatively affect communities that are already struggling.

And so these are all things that I think we feel very responsible for, sort of um having at the front end of the conversation of what is it that we're trying to learn and how can we lift up what's good.

I think that's a really big part of the community data trust because oftentimes what's missing is what's happening on the ground.

And so, for instance, if you look at a map and see, oh, there's all these parks in East Oakland, but in you go to them and then there's illegal activity or syringes, or it's not safe, then it doesn't matter that that's on the map.

The residents are saying this is not a place to be.

On the other hand, if you have the news saying, oh, East Oakland is so dangerous, you don't want to go there, but you have residents saying, Did you all know about this new restaurant?

Um, you know, we should all come here.

It's so family friendly, this is where we need to go.

And so we're able to actually do some very ground level mapping, and so that is one component of the community data trust.

Because I think at the end of the day, people's feelings of safety, do they feel like they can go out in their community?

Do they feel like they want their kids to raise their families there?

These are some of the subjective things that you don't get when you look at some of the data, and so the community data trust is meant to help fill in some of those gaps and lift up what's positive, and then also identify, okay, this particular corner is really a problem.

Like there's something always going on here, and oftentimes it's the neighbors that'll say, We just need some street lights and a smoke speed bump, and then we won't have all these fatal accidents or these drug transactions happening here because it's so dark.

And oftentimes they the residents know that, but there's no action.

So I think creating a pipeline of information to action is what is so critical, and it's very aligned with I think the public health department's also way of taking data to action.

So for example, with the report that was just published, that is a great piece of information to be able to take to the different cities and the county to help understand community violence is all of our issue, right?

Every one of us wants to be able to send our child to school and feel that they're going to be safe.

And so community violence is just not, oh, East Oakland game related situation, right?

This is everybody's issue.

And so I think being able to, first of all, having it through the public health lens.

I cannot emphasize enough how important this is because usually we're hearing from an enforcement side.

These are the bad guys, this is what we're gonna do.

We're either gonna lock them up or we're gonna put them over here.

I get that.

We need we need that too, right?

That that's part of it.

But it's the other part that hasn't been brought up.

And so I think both between what the Office of Violence Prevention is doing as well as through some of this community level activity, we will be able to add a lot more color to it because currently, if you're looking at enforcement data, it is going to keep giving us the same answers, and we're gonna keep on tailoring the same responses, and we're gonna keep getting the same outcomes.

Yeah, that's very helpful.

Uh the last question I had is I've been um struggling with trying to understand where we can best leverage some resources in in dealing with this issue of sex trafficking and human trafficking, because in my district, for example, we we are working with Oakland on a task force that involves multiple parties, including uh the Office of Violence Prevention.

And there's often um, I think you you pointed out different traumas that uh the youth, these are basically children that have, and that whether it's um uh you know, shooting situation versus the trafficking situation, how how what are what do you think the best resources are to help like bridge some of those um concerns because you know it seems like some of the community-based organizations are very specialized in one versus the other, and and and how do we get that bridge?

Because it's just not navigating from one to the other, right?

I agree.

I think it sounds like you have a lot of the key people at the table already, and I'm so glad again that we have the Office of Violence Prevention to bring that public health perspective because it's the whole entire context of that person's reality, their whole, you know, all of the things, and I think we need to be thinking about folks who are involved in different points of the system and where we could have intervened or where we can't intervene.

Um, so you know, whether that's child welfare or any of the other systems, so hopefully, social services is also part of that conversation.

Um, but one thing I would say I find is often missing, and that I think we would be wise to really ensure is not missing is workforce.

If you are going to tell a young person to stop having transactional sex, they need to have another way to earn, and they need to have hope and they need to have opportunities.

And so, and I would say also it's the same challenge we're going to be facing with our homeless population around HR one, are we entry population have barriers to employment with HR one?

If we don't have a good pathway to get people engaged in meaningful work and the ability to earn, then it's very difficult for us to deal with what are really the consequences of deep poverty and marginalization.

So I would just encourage how can we bring our workforce structures to bear?

How can we connect the systems to help people prove that they're working so that they don't also lose their health coverage on top of everything else?

But it is a really complex issue, and it is really devastating because we're talking, like you said, about very young people.

Um, but I also think if we have a way to get them meaningfully engaged, it's not only about the money that they're earning, but it's just about them seeing a path for themselves and seeing themselves involved in something else besides what they're doing right now for survival.

So much.

Thank you very much for the work you're doing in the community and for elevating so many critical issues and the risks that are out there.

So thank you so much.

Um, I think we're now gonna go on to our next presenter.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Thank you, good afternoon.

So my name is uh Dr.

Joe Griffin.

Oh, a little bit higher.

There we go.

Thank you so much.

All right, good afternoon, everyone.

My name is uh Dr.

Joe Griffin, and I am the executive director of uh Youth Alive here in Oakland.

And uh Supervisor Tam, um, this is a little bit aside to my presentation, but uh just here a question about uh gender-based violence and community violence and how that overlaps.

Uh, we're actually one of the national sites for the intersection program is a partnership between uh Youth Alive and Family Violence Law Center.

And we're just getting up and running.

I believe there's about 10 sites or less nationally, and it is about understanding where community violence and gender-based violence overlaps and where our expertise starts to end.

How do we have that formal structure to connect to gender-based violence partners?

So, would love to share more with you about that at another time, but just uh as it's uh something we are working on.

Uh so uh appreciate being here today.

Just uh quickly want to appreciate uh the Youth Alive staff who are out doing the work right now that I'm gonna share with you, our clinical partners who are uh allowing us to be in space uh with survivors of violence and those survivors of violence who are welcoming us into their lives uh in the moments when they're most traumatized and most vulnerable, and uh we truly do the work together and we do it uh for them and with them.

So, just a little bit about Youth Alive.

We're founded in 1991.

Uh, our mission is to break the cycle of violence, heal from trauma, and build community leaders.

Uh, our vision is a safe Oakland, free from violence, full of life, and our service population are communities impacted by community violence with a focus on Oakland California.

And so our approach is a public health approach that's broken into three strategies uh prevention, intervention, and healing.

In this way, we're working both downstream, uh supporting uh uh victims and survivors of violence in the immediate experience of community violence, but also working upstream to transform policies, build workforce uh that really turns our communities into those healing and healthy spaces that we know we deserve.

So, in terms of OVP support, uh uh this uh funding really supports three of our programs with Caught in the Crossfire at the Middle.

And so that's our hospital-based violence intervention program.

Uh, this is the program where we meet survivors of violence at the hospital bedside, uh, work with them over the next six to twelve months uh to really help them on their healing journey.

And it starts in the healthcare setting, but really what we're doing is we're intervening on the social determinants of health.

We're helping them find security and housing and employment, getting back into school, uh, the mental health support, really everything you need to begin healing.

Uh, but complementing that are our violence interrupters.

So these are experts in violence de-escalation and conflict mediation, as well as our youth life counseling.

So these are our counselors who provide in-house uh and trauma-informed uh uh counseling services.

So, in terms of the hospital response, we actually respond at four hospitals here throughout the county with uh Highland Hospital being our where we primarily respond.

We're also at Children's Hospital Oakland, Eden Medical Center, and specifically because of this support, we're able to expand to Washington hospital healthcare system as they establish their trauma center.

So, just to kind of highlight some of the unique uh uh pieces of our approach and how it goes beyond the traditional hospital-based violence intervention program.

Uh, first, uh, Conn the Crossfire is the first hospital-based violence intervention program.

Uh so Youth Alive has been uh doing this work for over 30 years, and uh since we are the first program, that means Alameda County is the home for hospital-based violence intervention programs.

Um, second, we provide HVIP services across healthcare systems.

This is something that isn't seen in most areas where uh many of these programs are actually housed within a healthcare system.

We're one of a handful that works across systems in order to really work throughout the community and track and work with folks as they move uh throughout the county.

Um, and then lastly, we were one of even fewer uh organizations that provide both hospital-based violence intervention programming and violence interruption in a clinical setting.

These are two of the anchor community violence intervention models that are recognized nationally, and there's also a recognition that we haven't explored in depth how these two programs can actually work in the clinical setting to reduce violence and promote healing.

And so we are one of those sites, and we hope to do more research in the near future to really share some of our best practices.

So this in general is how our hospital response works.

So if we go from left to right, it starts in a place of survival, where we meet a survivor of violence who is now in the hospital experiencing something that they never thought would happen, and in a place where they never saw their life going.

What tends to happen first is our violence interrupter conducts what we call a hospital safety assessment.

So the violence interrupter arrives at the hospital bedside, and what they're assessing is is there any immediate retaliatory violence that may happen either to the patient and their family or on their behalf.

And our violence interrupters are coming with the context of what happened in the community into the healthcare setting.

So we're trying to figure out what we need to do to prevent future violence from escalating from this incident.

From there, they then introduce the caught in the crossfire intervention specialist.

So this is where intensive case management happens and it starts.

So our intervention specialist provides intensive case management starting at the hospital bedside, then moving home and really supporting that survivor violence up to the next 12 months.

One of the things we know when you experience trauma is you need two things.

You need supportive individuals around you, and you need supportive systems that provide you the care that you need.

We act as that supportive individual who then helps you navigate those systems.

And then in many cases, we then refer in-house to our counselors who provide trauma-informed support.

One of the unique ways that our counselors provide their support is that it's actually rarely done inside of our offices.

Our counselors are introduced through our other staff that are working with both the individual and their families, and much of this counseling is done in community.

We're meeting our survivors where they are, in their homes, at the park, on errands.

One of the things that we found was when we brought our counseling services in-house and are able to do the warm handoff, we saw about a five uh five times uptick in referrals actually being followed through and people going through with counseling.

And then lastly, where our program ends is with stability.

So we know that there is much more healing that needs to be done past our programs.

But if we could get our folks to a space where they feel that they can move forward on their own and that their family feels that they can move forward on their own, that's where we see success.

All right, so um just some uh quick key indicators just to show the need for the work.

So, in terms of our violence interrupters and their hospital safety assessments, 2024, we provided 112.

2025, year to date, we provided 120 hospital safety assessments.

Calling the crossfire in terms of survivors served in 2024, we served 123 survivors of violence year to date, we've served 101.

And then in terms of hours of counseling, in 2024, we provided over 2,000 hours of counseling.

In 2025, we've increased that to over 3,000 hours of counseling.

So this shows the effort that's put in.

Our most recent data as of 2024, we had less than one percent of survivors of violence that we served through calling the crossfire uh be re-injured uh as an act of violence.

So we really are seeing a great uh outcome, you know, in terms of this program.

And then lastly, just to share with you uh a case study of what county investment makes possible.

So we're gonna um call this client, Maria.

So Maria's is she's 23 years old in January of last year.

She was referred to us from Eden Hospital after surviving a gunshot wound.

When our Colin the Crossfire intervention specialist met her at the hospital bedside, Maria was dealing with much more than the injury.

She was struggling with substance use.

She didn't have stable housing.

She was missing appointments, and she was returning to the same neighborhood where she'd been shot, putting her at continued risk.

This is the reality for many survivors of violence.

Healing doesn't happen in a straight line.

So because of OVP's investment, our staff didn't give up when engagement was hard.

They stayed.

In this case, our team responded immediately and began providing services.

Over time, with consistent support and trust, Maria made the decision to enter rehab and began her sobriety journey.

After completing treatment, she stayed connected to recovery meetings and began rebuilding stability.

Our team coordinated housing support and she secured a place at the tiny homes, a major milestone after years of cycling through shelters.

She also received the practical supports that make stability possible.

Food, transportation, phone access, the basics to help people stay connected and show up.

At the same time, Maria was connected to Youth Alive's counseling services.

That counseling gave her space to process the trauma of the shooting, her recovery, and the emotional weight of everything she was navigating.

Maria is now housed, employed, and maintaining her sobriety.

Her case with Conley Crossfire has closed, not because support disappeared, but because stability was achieved.

This is what your investment makes possible.

Not just survival after violence, but real healing, stability, and a path forward.

So thank you for convening continuing to invest in what works.

Thank you, Dr.

Griffin, for your work.

Help me understand is it an MOU with the trauma hospitals and Youth Alive?

Yes, so we have MOUs with uh each of the health centers, and uh what we do is uh we have uh clinical staff that we partner with um who then help us with the referral process.

And there's uh different systems for for each uh hospital system, uh, but they connect directly with uh our Conn the Crossfire team, and that's how we're able to respond.

What's the quality control?

I'm just worried like someone is off that day, is there a misreferral?

Like help me understand that we're ensuring that everyone that needs your service is being connected.

Yeah, so quality control actually happens in our uh regular meetings with our hospital teams.

So those could be anywhere from where Highland where we have uh the majority of our referrals, those are every one to two weeks, versus with Washington Hospital, where we're just getting up and started, uh, those are a little less frequent, about monthly.

And that's where we can check in.

Uh we can see if the referrals were missed, um, and we could start to understand okay, who is actually um accepting our programs and at what time?

So that's where we explore the data together to improve our program.

Great.

And then in terms of the counseling, is there a cap on how many sessions?

No, we don't have a cap on uh our sessions uh currently.

Okay, great.

Those are all my questions, Supervisor Tim.

Thank you.

I appreciate your presentation.

I know uh my staff has gone to several of the youth alive events because uh Tracy Janssen has been connecting us.

He the questions I had are probably more basic.

Uh, how are your uh services funded?

Like, is it primarily through Medical, through the health system?

Yeah, so our service primarily through uh contracts, government contracts for hospital-based intervention at different levels, local, state, and federal.

Um, unfortunately, this year uh we lost two million dollars in federal uh funding, and that was primarily to support our hospital-based violence intervention program.

So, without the OVP funding this year, uh being able to expand into Washington hospital, let alone keep our programs going would have been extremely difficult.

So the Wilmachet Highland Hospital is a level one trauma center.

I I presume, but I may be wrong, that most of your cases are at the trauma centers, because gunshot wounds typically go to uh trauma centers.

Yes.

And the the other hospitals in the system, besides the Almida health system, like you know, Washington, Sutter and Kaiser, what happens to uh gunshot victims that go there?

Yeah, so we we are only at trauma centers because with trauma centers, there's enough time to respond.

So we actually don't respond to Kaiser.

Um we're uh just at the four trauma centers uh here that we uh respond to.

Um, so I mean, but that is one of the the benefits though of um being multiple and being what we call in our field hospital-linked versus hospital-based.

So while the majority the majority of our referrals do come from uh Highland Hospital, um I think a little bit over 80% traditionally comes from Highland Hospital.

Um, we do also uh receive uh community referrals because a big part of this is while we may first engage at the hospital bedside, um sometimes people aren't ready for the support.

And it's not a you say yes and or no and we never contact you again.

Um, one of the benefits of us running uh seven direct service programs uh at Youth Alive is that people do reach back out to us.

Even if there is that initial no, um we do remain uh in contact, we do understand what's going on in the community through our community violence interruption work, and we are able to bring folks back in.

Uh so that's one of the ways that we do engage with folks, even if we do uh miss you at the hospital bedside initially.

Okay, thank you.

Um my last question is probably uh kind of an odd one because I uh as Dr.

Apelar said, the age seems to be going up in terms of what we see at the hospitals, and the cutoff I thought was around 24.

So, what happens if you're not 24 and above and above?

Yeah, so so we we've never turned away a referral uh due to age, and and that's why it's uh great to have roots here as a partner as we start to think about what's changing.

I think we're seeing changes in age demographics.

Um we're also seeing changes, and this is where our work needs to become more regional, um, because organically our work is regional, but we're also seeing changes in who is injured um in Oakland and Alameda County.

And while this may be home to them, they may actually reside in another county.

So, how do we partner with our other HBIP partners?

Um, San Francisco County, uh and uh Contra Costa County have very strong programs that we partner with, including with some of our other partners.

But how do we make sure that we are actually wrapping our arms around survivors of violence um as a community, understanding that even though our funding and maybe you know just how far we can drive may be limited, um, but we have an entire community of uh violence intervention prevention professionals that we can lean on.

And so that's becoming more and more important to our work, particularly post-pandemic lockdown, where we're seeing that spread happen, and we're starting to understand that the geographic and the social environment may not be as aligned as we thought it was.

Okay, that's very helpful.

But 80% of the people that you see that come from Highland Hospital, they're all they're under the age of 24.

No, they they can be um higher uh than 24, so um up to 35.

Uh, and that's kind of one of the things we work on is make sure that there is no gap there.

Um, but we are working with the same partners uh through Highland.

So it is coordinated.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Dr.

Griffin.

Um welcome back.

Thanks for your assistance.

No problem.

I was gonna say the last of our community-based organization partner presentations um will be between Asian Health Services and Bay Well Health.

And so I would like to invite up uh two quats, the president of Asian health services, Ben Wong, Director of Special Initiatives, Jeannie Chen, the advocacy manager, and uh with Bay Well Health, Robert Phillips, the president and chief executive officer.

Thank you, everyone.

Welcome and thank you for your patience.

That's good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Uh it's always an honor and privilege to be here.

So thank you both uh for having us.

Um, so uh, we can go to next slide.

The way we'll break this up is I'll I'll set the stage.

Um, and then uh I will turn it to two, we'll also then turn it to Ben so we can get into the details.

Um, so as I said, my name's Robert Phillips.

I'm the president and CEO of Baywell Health.

Um and the reason why we're doing this together is because this is 50 years of shared history.

Um, and 1973 when Asian Health Services was told by the federal government that there wouldn't be a language specific or culturally specific clinic.

Um, you know, our uh predecessors recognize that the community should be able to say who cares for them and what's most important and what's culturally consistent for them.

So we supported that.

That started our relationship.

Um, so the agenda today that you see up here is consistent with the agenda that you all have.

It really is about, you know, how um do we use the Office of Violence Prevention and how us as community health institutions take um do what it takes to actually promote health and peace and grace in a community.

And so from where we sit in our clinics, and you've heard this from all of our colleagues in the community who are doing this work.

Violence shows up long before a 9-1-1 call.

And you've heard from all of us that we see that violence before it actually shows up.

And for us, you know, it shows up as chronic stress, it shows up as the absenteeism that we deal with, the chronic diseases that we deal with, the untreated trauma that we deal with in our clinics.

And it changes how people move in their neighborhoods.

So, you know, our what you'll hear from us in our findings is consistent with what you all have been doing and the reason why you started the Office of Violence Prevention in the first place, which is really that, you know, you can prevent violence in the same way that public health actually prevents disease and illness by addressing root causes.

And that's what you'll hear from us today.

And so, you know, our simple comparison and the way we engage in this work, and I'll talk about that in a second, is as we started working on these issues.

You know, we asked ourselves, you know, do we want to keep mopping the floor, or do we want to find a fix and leak it, uh leak and fix it when we're dealing with the issues of violence.

And so both of our organizations engage in emergency response.

Both of our organizations engage in trauma recovery and trauma response.

Both of our organizations provide special need mental health as well as integrated behavioral health, and all that matters.

It's really, really important.

Um, but it never stops what we actually experience.

And as you heard, you know, public health, the public health approach really is about fixing in the link.

It's about fixing communities.

And so, you know, we exist, you know, for that work.

Um, both of us started as organizations, us in 1966 by four black mothers and 25 volunteer physicians, who really, as one of our founders, Chloe Till Davis says, you know, saw ourselves as the health need.

Um, and so we became what is now a comprehensive community health clinic.

And what I mean by that is um everything you can think of in primary care we offer, along with pharmacy, as long along with dental behavioral health, optometry and the like, as well as the community health services that you would imagine.

Asian Health Services, no different, founded in 1974, offering the same.

We serve 14,000 patients annually.

Asian Health Services serves over 50,000 annually.

Um, and so it's that 50-year history that kind of brought us to this moment in this work.

Um, while we've always dealt with violence, it was really about five years ago in 2020, when both communities in the midst of COVID were experiencing two things simultaneously for different reasons.

Um really high rates of violence, far outstripping any other community, and then two really high rates of violence through hate crime.

Um, but the other thing we were experiencing, and the reason why we got into this work is um the answer that people were giving, the narrative that people were telling around that uh dynamic was that one community was hurting the other.

Um, and so we wanted to know if that was true, and so we asked the community, and so what we wound up doing was you know, checking, and so we did over a thousand interviews focused groups, um, individual um uh develop individual interviews as well as um surveys and in language to see what they told us.

And what we found is um a number of things.

A number of our seniors told us that, you know, sometimes on both sides, black seniors as well as Asian seniors that, you know, they have to check behind themselves when they're on the street or in the elevator.

Others said that they found themselves frighteningly getting numb to the violence, just adjusting to what was happening to them.

And so we launched this Asian Black Healing project to really do three things.

One was to do a joint community research project.

So we can actually hear from the community, and you'll hear from two in a second on what we found around what interventions actually needed to happen.

The second thing we did was use that information to inform a culturally competent mental health toolkit.

And you'll hear some of what we did with that from Ben in a second and Janie.

But the third thing we did was actually engaged in narrative change.

The reason why we did this work was not just to kind of inform what we were up to and kind of ask the community what they thought, but for them to actually tell us like what was really going on.

One of the things that came up was stories were driving things that weren't always healthy for either.

And so I'm gonna turn it uh over to two so she can see what we found, but also what some of those stories were telling us, but what they wanted us to do about it.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Good afternoon.

Um it's such an honor to be here.

If you can go to the next slide, thank you.

Um it's such an honor to be here, but it's especially a great honor to be here alongside Baywell, because we really felt like the answers laid in how we work together on this.

And so I'm gonna give you some of the findings that we have.

Just to start, I wanted to say that the focus of our original research is to really understand the perception, the attitudes and experiences, not just of the Asian American population and the black residents here uh in Oakland, but also how we view each other, and that was core to a lot of this.

Um, and we did a series of uh of interviews as well as focus groups, and then Bay Well went on to do a survey, a quantitative survey.

And so you can see from here in terms of perceptions of violence that when it came to um recognizing violence as a serious problem, uh, those within uh among our patients, and I should say we actually conducted our our um focus groups and interviews in Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Korean, Tagalog, and Kamai.

So it's really important that we actually did it in language, and about 88% of those that we talked to felt that violence was a serious issue compared to Baywell's um participants who saw it as 98%.

So that's really, you know, important to see that most of them felt that's an issue uh issue, but that the predominant uh folks in Baywell felt that uh uh violence was a key issue.

Next slide.

Uh when it came to asking the groups about whether violence is uh against Asian Americans is an issue.

Interesting enough, about 81% among Asian Americans felt like it was a serious or somewhat serious issue.

Um very interesting that um among those uh uh with Baywell, that 88% felt that violence against Asian Americans is an issue, and that's really an important point to highlight.

Next slide.

But when it came to racism and discrimination against black people, uh, those uh among our patients uh a very about 68% felt it was a very serious or somewhat serious issue.

Well, 21% responded don't know, and I think that already says so much.

Um, and but when we um Baywell participants were asked, you know, the vast majority felt that it was an issue.

The 21% that we picked up really highlighted uh what we heard in in the interviews and focus groups, which is that these communities sometimes don't always know each other very well, and that was something that we uh delved a lot deeper into.

Next slide.

Um, I had mentioned that Baywall went on to do a survey with about a thousand participants, and here from a lot of those findings, it really highlighted that there were a need to expand on mental health services.

Uh, as these could be the solution that we look into.

70% felt that um providing youth job training and counseling, which we heard from others, was really critical.

68% felt that non-police staff training to respond to non-violent emergency is really important when you're dealing with violence and addressing violence, and then uh increase uh 68% felt that increasing investments and helping residents meet basic needs was really key.

Like we needed a lot of our residents need food, they need jobs, they need housing, and those are important when you're thinking about addressing violence in the community.

Next slide.

So this is really core to what we found in our survey.

So next I'm going to turn over to Janie to share a little bit more about some of the stories that we have.

Thanks.

So as two mentioned, one of the most powerful findings that emerged from both the Asian and Black communities was that there was a lack of shared space and connection and understanding.

You can go to the next slide.

So this was an opportunity for us as health centers to act.

One of the first things that we did was to hold a joint food distribution, not only to address the issue of food insecurity that came up a lot in our interviews, but also an intentional opportunity to bring these two communities together.

So you can see in these photos of our joint food distributions that we've continued to do over the years, starting in 2023.

This was a space to highlight our cultural diversity and to really celebrate each other.

So in recognition of Lunar New Year and Black History Month in February, we brought in cultural performances to our food distribution.

We had Chinese lion dancing and West African drumming.

Next slide.

Over the past three years, we've been able to reach well over a thousand community members at our food distributions and events.

In addition to our cultural celebrations, we've held tours and healing circles with our two clinics with our patients and our staff.

So we I wanted to share a quote or story from one of our elders who participated in our elders organizing collective.

She had the chance to learn about the Black Panther Party and West Oakland, as well as they got to tour Bay Well Health.

And she shared that it was her first time visiting Oakland, even visiting West Oakland, even though she had been living in Chinatown for over 20 years.

And she said, although West Oakland and Chinatown communities have different ethnic backgrounds, they face similar difficulties.

For example, many residents are from low-income families.

There are medical resources, but they're not easy to access for us seniors.

Both African American elders and Asian immigrant elders may be neglected in society and mental health issues often lack sufficient attention.

And these common challenges remind us that our two communities should strengthen our cooperation, learn from each other's strengths to improve the well-being of our entire community.

And those are words from our Chinese, from our Chinese elders, which I feel like we don't get to hear from them very often, even though they're very poetic and wise.

So next slide.

Earlier this year, we wanted to, I wanted to highlight a photo exhibition that we did.

So this was an opening reception event for a photo exhibition that was based on the findings from our Asian Black Racial Healing Project, and the exhibition featured over 30 portraits and photos and quotes where Oakland community members highlighted their experiences of pain and trauma, but also their experiences of hope and healing.

So if you go to the next one, you can see some of the quotes that were from our participants.

One of them, I noticed that both our communities are hurting, and there's a long history of oppression and racism and hate towards both of us.

I like to see us come together helping each other.

Next one.

Another quote says there's a collective historical trauma that we hold and we carry, and we also recognize that we're trying to heal for our future generations not to have this hold that same way.

Yeah, so this was in these joint interventions.

We recognize that you know, real safety also comes from meeting where people's everyday needs are, meeting their basic needs, making sure they have access, but also building relationships across communities and standing in solidarity to each other.

I'll pass it to Ben to talk more about our direct services and policy work.

Okay, thank you, Janie, and uh much appreciation to the supervisors for allowing this space for us to share about our work.

Um I'll close it out just with the last few slides here.

We did want to highlight some of the based on the findings, the research, and uh what we've been hearing directly from our patients.

We have been implementing lay mental health counseling.

And in Alameda County, community violence and trauma are some of the highest ranked priorities for every age group.

With that said, we are facing a significant shortage of licensed mental health therapists with often long wait times, and the shortage, especially for bilingual and bicultural therapists, is even more stark.

And so, in response, AHS, Baywell Health, and many of our partners, we've been able to train up dozens of lay mental health counselors to serve survivors of violence and people who are experiencing trauma in our communities.

Many of our staff and partners have been able to receive training through Elizabeth Morrison's Lay Counselor Academy, which our staff have found helpful and effective to increase their skills as well as increase their confidence as community health workers, as case managers, to really step in and fill some of these critical gaps related to violence prevention, related to victim support services and mental health care.

So, equipped with these, the lay counselor training.

Our community health advocates have been able to work with survivors of violence over the past four years, reaching over 400 individuals who are survivors of various types of violence, including homicides and gun violence, home invasions and robberies, elder abuse, hate crimes, domestic violence, and much more.

And one facet of the lay counselor strategy is we've been able to increase timely access to care.

And so typically after a referral and case assignment, the victim or client is able to receive access to lay counseling within 48 hours, which is a much shorter time than if you're gonna schedule an appointment with a traditional therapist.

And on top of that, many of the community health workers who are trained as lay counselors who are bilingual and bicultural, who come from the communities that we serve, are more skilled to build trust and build rapport to be able to build that relationship with the client where they feel that they can open up, given that many people may not uh may not want to receive traditional mental health therapy, at least not right away.

And uh next slide, please.

Also building on the uh research projects that we have described.

We also collaborated with partners such as Bay Wall Health to publish a policy report, a public health approach to community safety and healing in Oakland and Alameda County.

So these are just three of the recommendations, increasing access to mental health services for victims as well as justice involved and at-risk individuals, prioritizing equity and multiracial collaboration as violence prevention strategies, and deep investment in a comprehensive public health framework for violence prevention.

And I think as part of this is the importance of collaboration amongst our CBOs, which HS, we've been very fortunate to partner with some of the other grantees here today, as well as the City of Oakland DVP grantees and partners working in collaboration with the Alameda County Public Health department has been critical, as well as the City of Oakland and all of our jurisdictions that we are part of, including actually the state of California through the Stop the Hate program, AHS has been able to leverage and bring in millions of dollars in anti-hate and violence prevention work into Oakland and Alamina County with many of the partners that are also part of this violence prevention fabric.

And next slide, please.

So we are excited to continue our community-based violence prevention work, including the violence prevention research survey and collab in close collaboration with Alamina County Public Health Department.

We are also we are also conducting another round of focus groups to give our community members additional opportunities to share directly what they are what they believe will bring increased safety to our communities here in Alamina County.

We are also expanding many of our direct services and holistic healing services in response to many of the threats that we're you know experiencing today, including the intersection around uh violence that communities are experiencing, but also the increasing ice raids and deportation threats, which are also factors to increase the threat of violence and experiences connections to violence and trauma as well.

And we are continuing our joint cultural celebration, so looking forward to in 2026 another celebration with Baywell Health for Lunar New Year and Black History Month.

And so I think with that, we are thankful again for the opportunity to share about our work.

Thank you so much for the presentation and the tremendous work, and please send our offices save the data information on those joint efforts.

Would be happy to join in and see the beautiful uh communities coming together.

Um, but in terms of building trust amongst the Asian and Black communities, what did you find was like something that resonated with most of the participants?

Was it sharing food, cultural?

I think you mentioned storytelling, but can you try to kind of capture what was the um the highest response?

That's a great question.

So it we found it's two things.

Um, one was just space, uh, food helps.

Um, but the just being able to be in proximity.

Um, so I'll give you an example.

Um, during the food distribution, um, we brought some of our pastors with us because it was a source of tension.

Um, so in West Oakland, you know, we do food distribution a lot, particularly a number of the churches do.

Um, and the tension was, and I should mention that you know, there's this feeling of scarcity.

So the tension was around that feeling of scarcity.

Um, and so some of the churches felt like uh some of the Asian seniors, particularly the grandmas, were boxing out folks from the black community, and that it was intentionally kind of focused on the community.

And so one of the things that we were able to do was when we uh did the food distribution of Woman's hand park, was to bring them with us to see it, um, and uh the Asian health services staff were leading on this.

And so he got to see them with the Asian health services staff, and they were worse than they were with us.

And so what it allowed, the proximity allowed us to do is actually put things in context, but also um allow people to get information in real time, but actually understand each other because they could see each other and know that it wasn't necessarily uh an a racial issue, it was just uh, I'm getting it how I live issue.

Um, and we found that we found that over and over again that if we can just kind of create proximity, particularly around the things that are actually creating tension, that's what really kind of helps us out.

I agree with what Robert had to say, and I would just add that um it's also understanding each other's history.

So, as Janie shared the story about um some of our seniors, and I did want to make a plug that um Ben and his team and Janie actually created a documentary uh called Love Has Two Meanings, and so maybe we can pass that along, but it follows um Asian seniors who themselves have been victims, and then when they actually see that the violence that they experience is part of a greater um uh history uh where communities of color have been pitted against each other, they found forgiveness, but they also found a way for them to heal and to put healing.

So I think the answer lies also in understanding our history as well as each other's history.

Thank you so much.

Supervisor Tim.

Thank you for this presentation.

I know we waited a long time for it, and uh I know that uh Supervisor Carson and I were invited to participate in some of the opening events, and it's super gratifying to see how things have got together and um the bridges that have been built between the two cultures.

Um I totally agree with you when we have to basically have one group saying we're more oppressed than the other, that doesn't do anything, right?

We have to understand each other's history and how we move on from the trauma and how to work with each other and be with each other.

So the question I had um was on your uh slide, slide 10, that showed um that 54 percent of the um community that was surveyed by Baywell Health uh agreed that racism and discrimination against black people is a very serious concerns, or uh I guess I'm trying to ask the basic question.

For most of the Baywealth Health respondents, were they from the black community?

Yeah, 98%.

Did they feel that um the discrimination was from the Asian community, or just in general, they've felt discrimination?

In general, it was a yeah.

Okay, that's very helpful.

And the other question I had was on uh the non-police staff responding uh that was that would have been more effective.

Um can you kind of describe what that looks like?

Is it the ambassadors, or is it people stopping fights, or how how does that intervention look like?

Um so we heard, you know, from some of our colleagues, those interventions are what they're looking at, as well as not necessarily sworn officers or deputies, um, but folks from the department.

So one of the things we heard clearly out of the survey uh that folks wanted was they did want a police response, they just didn't want it to be the first response.

Um, and so when they said they wanted folks who were non-police personnel, what they mean is, um, like with the macro staff uh with the city of Oakland.

They have a relationship to the department, they're not the department.

Um they have proximity to access to, can um bring them to the situation when needed, but that's not what you start with uh as a law enforcement response.

And the reason why they felt that way is because the law enforcement response heightened and worsened the situations that they found themselves in.

And so no one said that they didn't want kind of that public safety response, they just felt they didn't feel safe when that was the first thing that came.

And so that was an example of that.

Can we have, you know, trusted messengers?

Can we have um community health workers who actually understand how to do de-escalation or engage in, you know, kind of motivation or interviewing the things that you would expect someone when it's not necessarily like a violent event or you're responding to uh post-traumatic thing that you're actually just responding to, just might just be a disagreement.

Um, how do you respond with the appropriate resources up front rather than always a law enforcement um resource?

Okay, um this is across both uh racial groups.

I should start by saying I think the interviews and focus groups we did were really rich, and there was definitely some themes that came out.

I wouldn't say for the Asian community that it was one way or another, that it was very mixed, you know, and and we also interview young folks too, and they had very different views.

So for some, there is that sense that safety may equate to more policing, while others were like, well, even when the police come, we can't speak the language.

And so it's really themes around wanting a response, but also wanting to be heard about what's happening.

So I wouldn't say that the Asian group agreed or disagreed, it was a very mix in that.

But for the African American community, the theme came out that it may uh not be police first and foremost, even though they should be part of the the different responders.

Okay, the reason I'm asking is because you know, we're going through the reimagining emergency medical services response, and um a key component of our work is looking at providing alternative response to mental health care crisis, whether it's the CAT team, the care team, and Alameda, the macro team, but macro is fairly limited.

So I was trying to understand like if somebody has a mental health crisis, someone can call the hopefully the 911 and they'll be able to send the appropriate staff out.

But when if someone's engaged in an altercation, how does that work?

You can't you bring in and all a non-police response at that point, too.

I was just gonna share that uh through some of our work in close partnerships with organizations like Tribe and Family Bridges.

These are groups that are trained as community ambassadors, and they work within the ecosystem of you know, the other programs that you mentioned, but some of their staff are part of kind of daily relationship building violence prevention work along certain corridors in certain communities where they're building relationships with young people, with small business owners, with unhoused people where they are in a very good position based on those relationships and trusts where they can navigate situations where they can lead some of the conflict mediation and de-escalation.

At times, I think they're you know, so the ambassadors have been one component of kind of a larger violence prevention framework, which many of our partners are also even deeper connected to, but I think that has been something that we've been able to uh educate and provide opportunities for some of the Chinese elders in Chinatown community members where we've had exchanges with those ambassadors, and it's really opened up, you know, they've shared after some of those sessions and going through a course as a cohort of learning the broader comprehensive community safety model, where in the first session, some of these monolingual elders, it was it was you know, we asked them what would make you feel safer.

I think it was almost 100% really focused just on more police presence.

And after this cohort where they got to learn all these other aspects of you know, re-entry work and employment work and the ambassadors' work, uh, at the final session, there was actually a much richer conversation where the elders were really advocating for more mental health resources for more re-entry services as part of a holistic violence prevention model.

Um, and so that was just you know a smaller sample size of these 25 elders, but it was very consistent, I would say, in them sharing with us in their own language of you know, some of those recommendations.

Okay, that's very helpful, and uh once again I I uh applaud your efforts because uh you've been amazing after, especially after the pandemic and securing um resources to make sure that uh we deal with these, what Supervisor Carson at that time called the elephant in the room uh with the racial divides, and that was really important in helping the communities feel and be together in our cities.

So thank you.

I concur with those comments, it's tremendous to see the care and attention being given to community members that may have had differences in the past.

Just wanted to follow up on the lay mental health counseling.

How long is that training?

Is there additional touch points and support provided?

So it's a little over 60 hours, and we actually came across this training because of the major mental health workforce shortage.

And I would say we probably sent over 60 of our staff to this training.

It's in a series, it's not a one-sitting, it's over about usually 12 weeks, both virtual and in person.

So it's been really powerful, and we've sent not only our mental health like community health workers, but even some of the ambassadors that Ben have mentioned because it's really be the mental health approach should be the first approach that when we're coming into any situation.

So it's Elizabeth Morrison's training is with just one of the multiple ones that are out there, but it's been the one that we've used across the state.

Thank you so much.

Sounds like a great resource.

We've concluded all of our presentation, so thank you.

On yours, okay, your wrap-up, yes.

And then I just want to note uh Supervisor Miley is still with us participating as a community members.

So I um Supervisor Miley will call on you first under public comment and we'll give you ample time to make your comments, but we still need to conclude the presentation.

So thank you.

So I will be wrapping up pretty quickly.

Um I just again want to express my thanks to our community partners who came out in full force today.

Um, so Destiny Arts Center, Roots Community Health, Youth Alive, Asian Health Services, and Bay Well Health for helping us to show that our violence prevention efforts, which cover the spectrum from prevention, intervention, and transformation, can really help to ensure that all Alameda all Alameda County residents live in healthy communities.

The last part of this presentation, I'm just gonna briefly touch on next steps, and I recognize we have folks who may want to speak in the community.

So I will advance us through this quickly.

Um I'm sharing this slide again, it's a little bit more data, noting that violence is a leading cause of death for Alameda County youth.

Um, and so it was made reference to measure C funding being allocated by this board, which is going to be a significant help for us in working with community-based providers to help address some of these issues for our younger children, youth, and young adult populations.

With measure C allocation forthcoming, um, again, that was approved by the board on November 18th.

So a month ago, it'll be three million annually for the next three fiscal years.

Um, it'll allow us to provide a bulk of our funding under that umbrella to community-based contracts, and then allow us to build a few more people around our Office of Violence Prevention than we have today.

But the funding will allow for investments and programming that's focused on decreasing the impacts of violence on children, youth, and young adults, and so we will be doing a procurement to identify community-based partners and more to come on that in 2026.

The last couple of things that I want to make reference to our violence reduction collaborative efforts, and so again, recognizing that public health is operating within this space, but we are also joined by the district attorney's office and probation collectively.

The three of us applied for funding through the California violence intervention and prevention program.

Um, and so we'll hope to hear from Cal VIP early in 2026.

In addition, we participate in the probation department's violence prevention team, and there are a number of city and countywide regional efforts that we engage in.

We're at tables with Oakland's Department of Violence Prevention and Oakland Fund for Children and Youth, as well as Hayward Police Department's youth and Family Services bureau, and all of that work will incrementally have an impact on improving the conditions of well-being for Alamini County residents.

Our ongoing program implementation centers and focuses on data collection, narrative change, policy advocacy and advancing best practices.

And so I share this just as a reminder that recently we released the summer, our promoting peaceful families and communities report on gun violence in the county.

There's a lot of information there and we've also started to take that to the community level to really hear from community members how gun violence impacts them and what we can do in terms of solutions and strategies that help promote prevention around this issue.

Our narrative change efforts are ongoing.

So ARPA funded activity which actually Asian Health Services Baywell and Youth Alive are part of includes narrative change to uplift more equitable narratives around community safety and violence and what proposed solutions may be.

And then last but not least our advancing best practices and policy advocacy implementation.

So with our advancing best practices every quarter we actually invite our community based organizations to come together and talk about their evidence informed practices that are really helping to move the needle in terms of violence that's experienced across the community and then for policy and advocacy we know that with federal funding changes there was a significant impact to community violence intervention programming that was cut and so we hope to continue to advocate for CBI dollars to help our community residents and the community based organizations that are serving them in addressing violence.

So that officially is the end this is our contact information if anyone would like to get in touch with us and I will end there.

Thank you.

Let's give Kristen Clapton Office of Violence Prevention Manager a huge round of applause.

Thank you to your entire team that was a heavy lift thank you to our presenters thank you to Eileen who helped coordinate this in AC Health as well as Brenda Brenda Standup.

Let's give her a round of applause she's my advisor on public safety and thank you to our clerk and just everyone for their patience and highly encourage everyone to read the full report at their leisure.

This is the beginning of critical work as was mentioned earlier I don't know if Supervisor Miley had a chance to hear my opening remarks I know Supervisor Tam had another commitment so joined us late but just wanted to flag how thankful I am to Supervisor Miley for his leadership starting this work decades ago including when he was on the Oakland City Council.

So on that note we will now open public comments I will call on Supervisor Miley first.

He's participating as a member of the public and we'll give him a chance to give his remarks so welcome Supervisor Miley.

And then we will take public comment if there's anyone in person that would like to speak please fill out a speaker card.

If you're remote please raise your hand thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you Supervisor Marquez can can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay very good yes I've been here since the beginning I apologize for not being there in person and I also apologize for my office not getting my location in advance to the clerk so I could participate in this very important meeting joint meeting today as a member of the board of supervisors but I have been listening as a member of the public since it started and I really appreciate your opening remarks because as you've pointed out I've been involved in this work for decades and decades and decades and I do know a little bit about the subject of violence prevention.

I really found the presentations today by the violence excuse me by the public health department in the violence prevention CBOs that were highlighted to be very informative, and I'm just very, very uh appreciative of the fact that we've had this report today, and that uh we've uh they were able to share this information with the board and with the public.

I particularly wanted to state that uh I'm familiar with all of the other organizations, you know, uh Baywell, Asian Health Services, Roots, you know, Dr.

Noha is one of my close advisors.

Um, my staff, we meet with Dr.

Noha monthly, and also, although I'm not as familiar with uh Destiny Arts, I found their presentation to be very informative, and I really um appreciate the fact that they're using martial acts, martial arts as a discipline to work with our young people so they could um learn through the warrior code uh how they can you know be more um uh confident and uh disciplined and in their uh growth and their journey uh into adulthood and through life.

I just really appreciate uh Destiny Arts.

You know, at one point in my life I was involved in martial arts, so I do understand uh the importance of of that as a as a as a teaching and a discipline uh modality.

So I very much appreciated hearing from them.

Um the work about violence prevention.

One thing I've learned over the years is that this work uh is non-stop, it's not one and done, it's just not one and done, and I hope that came forth today.

Uh and as I said, um, you know, youth alive, I was alone, I was on the Oakland City Council when we first began uh supporting Youth Alive.

Uh, so all these organizations are engaged in best practices, and it's just extremely important that we sustain their work so that it's continuous and ongoing because it's fundamental to us having resilient communities, and I think that's the key to violence prevention.

Uh, when I worked on the violence prevention plan for the county in the 2005 or six and got the board to adopt it, one thing we learned, uh a blueprint towards violence prevention, it's all about resilient communities, having communities that we want to live in, work in, recreate in, that are aesthetically pleasing, have good schools, have jobs, uh, have housing, etc.

We need resilient communities if we want to prevent violence, but we also need intervention, and as Dr.

Noha pointed out, there's a role for um uh police.

There's a role for law enforcement.

And I think one thing I would say with law enforcement, they have a role in violence prevention, particularly when we support community-oriented policing.

Community-oriented policing has been an effective tool that's worked to help uh prevent violence as well.

But we need these interventions, we need ceasefire, we need all of these efforts, and they need to be sustained and ongoing, and they can't be one and done.

Uh this process of you know creating uh communities that are resilient, excuse me, uh just goes on and on.

And I know Oakland, if Oakland is better, the county is better.

I think that's something we all would agree to because a rising tide lifts all boats.

You know, if we can make Oakland more resilient, it really would improve uh as was pointed out in the presentations by the staff, uh, some of those diagrams and charts that if Oakland is better, the whole county ultimately uh is better in terms of reducing violence.

I'm just really pleased too that over the years of working on violence prevention, we were able to get violence prevention as a institutionalized uh public health intervention because it wasn't always in the public health department that violence prevention was looked upon that way.

So I'm just very, very pleased that it's been institutionalized.

You know, I know Kimmy, I knew her boss uh Montu Davis, I knew his boss, Arnold Perkins, and I'm just really pleased to see the growth that's taken place in the Department of Public Health and institutionalizing uh a division or section devoted to violence prevention.

But the important thing is we must sustain this work.

We must sustain this work.

We must fund this work, and we must recognize that this work cuts across many sectors, and as was pointed out by the staff, some of those sectors include uh social services, they include the DA, they include probation, etc.

So this has been a very fascinating and comprehensive presentation today with the CBOs that were highlighted.

And I applaud those CBOs for the best practices that they are undertaking.

And I applaud the Department of Public Health for bringing together the CBOs to talk about best practices.

Once again, I would encourage my colleagues, Supervisor Marquez and Tam today, and then Supervisor Bass as well as Halbert.

For us to struggle with how we can come up with the resources to help these violence prevention programs to advance their best practices to be sustainable, and to be focused where the need is the greatest, so that a rising tide lifts a vote lifts all votes.

Because I think if we can bring these programs to scale in Oakland, we will see a dramatic, a dramatic reduction in violence, not only in the city, but throughout the county.

And I think the county could be at the cutting edge of some great stuff around violence prevention.

So that's all I want to say today.

No, it was it was youth alive.

Violence prevention isn't just stopping at the county borders.

It does cut across other counties and the regions, and we are continuing to work to see how we can have a public safety uh corridor and a comprehensive approach to violence prevention on throughout the, you know, the at least throughout the East Bay, and hopefully have San Francisco a part of that.

We're having those conversations as I speak today.

So I just thank you all for being there today.

And I apologize for not being there in person.

And I apologize for my office not getting me um, you know, my location uh registered so I could be a part of uh the board's uh discussions and deliberations.

But I'm thankful that I was able to listen in.

So keep up the good work and um uh once again thank you and happy holidays, everyone.

Thank you, Supervisor Miley.

And again, um, my opening remarks.

I wanted to, I did acknowledge you as the chair of health committee as well as Supervisor Tam for advocating to increase the funding towards violence prevention.

Three million dollars have been awarded for the next three years, and for the public's information that came to a board letter item number 30 back on November 18th, and it was a unanimous vote.

Um, my understanding is there are no public comments in person or online other than Supervisor Miley.

And I I do have one more uh question.

I apologize, I wanted to ask this of Kristen with respect is she's yes, um, with respect to the fate uh fatality review team.

When do you expect those to um those positions to be filled?

So um, with respect to the fatality review team, I don't have a timeline just yet.

We are looking at early 2026 to do one.

Um, and we've actually had conversations both with Roots Community Health and some of our other partners through the county.

Um, but I I don't have a timeline for you just yet.

It's just next year.

And do we know how many positions we're considering?

Well, uh, so and I sorry, I was like, I should clarify for the Office of Violence Prevention.

We will have four positions that are funded and made possible through Measure C.

Okay.

The fatality review team is really up to us and other entities across the county to bring together staff to have those conversations.

Um, so potentially we'd be modeling it after the domestic violence fatality review team and the child death fatality review team, where we I think meet once a month um to have conversations and look at do a deeper dive into the the deaths that occurred.

Okay, thank you for that clarification.

That's very helpful.

Um, those are all my questions, and we now will close public comment.

Um, want to uh thank everyone today for the presentations, for your thoughtful and well prepared presentations.

I want to specifically recognize Alameda County Health for its leadership and close partnership with community-based organizations whose on-the-groundwork and trusted relationship make these efforts possible.

Today's discussion highlights the value of continued coordination across departments with community partners to strengthen services and improve outcomes.

As a county, we remain committed to advancing this work through collaboration, accountability, and sustained investment.

I appreciate everyone's time and engagement, and I look forward to continuing this work together on behalf of all Alameda County residents.

I also want to flag, I didn't hear one person present today say citizen, and that is so important when we talk about belonging.

Everyone who lives in this county, whether they live here or visit, they're a resident.

So thank you so much for uplifting that inclusive language.

As the chair of public protection, I would encourage you all to sign up for our newsletter so you could be informed of these meetings, as well as following us on Instagram and Facebook.

Also want to announce that public protection will not meet in January due to the topics that are coming to the Act Committee.

So there will not be a public protection meeting in January.

Our next meeting will be in February.

And want to also make sure that there's no one that would like to make a general public comment on items not on the agenda.

I have no speakers for general public comment.

Okay, and I do want to adjourn in memory of Coach John Beam as well as David Hearst, our esteemed and longtime District 1 Alameda County Public Health Commissioner who passed away recently.

After joining the public health commission, David quickly became an indispensable member of our public health community.

During his tenure, he provided thoughtful leadership as chair of both the Medi-Cal Ad Hall Committee and nominating committee.

David's contributions to the commission were significant and far-reaching.

He championed greater access to professional development by advocating for public health commissioners to utilize some total of the county's online training portal.

He was deeply committed to improving the social determinants of health for Alameda County residents and worked tirelessly to ensure that those eligible for Medi-Cal could access services with dignity and ease.

Beyond his service to the county, David devoted his time to the broader community through his work in a regional food bank, United Way, and the Livermore Pride.

He brought compassion and energy to everything he touched in his personal life.

David found joy in walking, hiking, and spending cherished time with his dogs.

Please keep David's family, friends, and loved ones in your thoughts and prayers.

Thank you, everyone, for your participation today in this meeting.