Focusing on people’s basic needs — along with grief counseling, acupuncture, and alternative healing practices — is part of Briana Manning’s approach.
by Roselyn Romero March 27, 2025 (Oaklandside.com)
When people talk about violence and its impact on Oakland residents, the focus is usually on shootings, assaults, and other crimes one person commits against another.
But Briana Manning says it’s important to conceptualize violence in broader terms.
“Homelessness, food insecurity, lack of mental health services, and communities not being invested in for generations — these are all forms of violence systematically,” she said.
Since July 2020, Manning has worked as the community healing program coordinator for Urban Peace Movement, an Oakland-based nonprofit that supports communities of color and provides leadership opportunities to youth disproportionately impacted by violence and mass incarceration.
The community healing program uses what Manning calls a “holistic healing” model, which aims to address a person’s basic and psychological needs. That might look like connecting people to food, housing, or jobs; counseling them through their grief; or referring them to therapy, acupuncture, herbal medicine, and other alternative healing modalities.
“Being able to address their immediate needs, like mental health needs, housing needs — all of those things are forms of healing,” she told The Oaklandside in a recent interview.
And these kinds of healing that address forms of systemic violence can play a role in reducing interpersonal violence, the thinking goes.
Never miss a story. Sign up for The Oaklandside’s free daily newsletter.Email
Most of the community members Manning and Urban Peace Movement serve have been impacted by gun violence, whether that means they lost a loved one to homicide or have been victimized themselves. Many of them are Black and Latino.
Most perpetrators of gun violence, Manning said, “are operating from a place of hurt; there’s a need that has not been met.” A 2018 study from the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform found that victims of gun violence are more likely to engage in retaliatory shootings.
Holistic healing “not only disrupts violence but helps people face themselves,” she said, adding that healing also acts as a form of violence prevention. “Some people have not had the chance to pause and ask themselves, ‘How has this impacted me?’”
In addition to organizing vigils for individuals and families, Manning provides a meditation and prayer space at Urban Peace Movement’s office in downtown Oakland. The “Audre Lorde Room” is equipped with sage, candles, a singing bowl, incense, coloring books and pencils, tarot cards, and framed photos honoring deceased community members.
Personal experiences have convinced Manning of the need for ‘holistic healing’ work
Born in Sacramento, Manning was adopted at age 3 after being in an abusive foster home. She re-entered the foster care system shortly after, moving back and forth between California and Texas until ninth grade. She emancipated from the foster care system at 18.
“I am very lucky that I was able to get into housing specifically for people with disabilities,” said Manning, who has cerebral palsy. “There are so many kids that slip through the cracks or don’t get the proper care they need to become an adult.”
After graduating with degrees in sociology and criminal justice from Sacramento City College and Sacramento State University, respectively, she worked at a high school in Sacramento for two years as a mentor to foster youth. Afterward, she worked as a youth employment specialist at a nonprofit for four years, helping teens and young adults who have dropped out of high school get their diplomas, find jobs, and connect to community resources.
In 2019, Manning moved from Sacramento to Oakland to work for MISSSEY, a nonprofit that supports survivors of commercial sexual exploitation. As she counseled children and teen survivors — many of whom were in the foster care system — she witnessed firsthand what she calls the “CPS-to-prison” pipeline, a trend in which those who have entered the child welfare system are disproportionately likely to become involved in the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems.
“When people’s needs are not met, they move in survival mode,” she said. “When people are in survival mode, they’re unpredictable.”
Later, while working at Bay Area Community Services, a local nonprofit that helps place people in temporary and permanent housing, Manning saw how the needs of people with disabilities were often neglected, particularly at the start of the COVID pandemic. As part of Contra Costa County’s COVID-19 hotel shelter program, she delivered three meals a day to unhoused people quarantining in Richmond hotels. She grew increasingly frustrated with the lack of support for people after they tested negative for COVID and had nowhere else to go.
“That gap in services is also a form of violence,” Manning said.
Heal-R-Town and other programs aim to bring communities together and improve public safety
As part of her work at Urban Peace Movement, Manning and her colleague Tenika Blue co-facilitate intergenerational group healing circles called “Heal-R-Town.” Typically held on Zoom every third Friday and in person once a quarter, the healing circles use a “popular education” approach in which everyone shares their experiences and learns from one another.
“I think youth can teach our elders a thing or two, and our elders can teach the youth a thing or two,” she said. “You can’t heal in isolation.”
Heal-R-Town meetings are free and open to the public, with previous sessions having some attendees from out of state. In-person healing circles typically see between 20 and 30 participants. Virtual meeting attendance varies widely.
The meetings, which usually last about an hour and a half, typically begin with a check-in question for all attendees, followed by a grounding exercise, discussion questions based on a particular topic, and an activity. During the healing circle, attendees are asked to chime in and jot down any insights that jump out to them.
“It’s a community effort,” said Manning. “Healing is not just about the individual — it’s also about the community and taking things back to the people they know and love.”
At the most recent Heal-R-Town last Friday on Zoom, Manning led community members through a series of prompts on physical wellness — namely, how rest, nourishment, and movement can be acts of healing. Last month, she facilitated a self-love-themed healing circle where she guided participants in making bouquets and writing love letters to themselves. Those letters, she said, will be mailed to participants at a later date.
Heal-R-Town is just one of the programs Urban Peace Movement offers. The nonprofit also hosts Scratch & Fade, a wellness festival in Oakland where community members can get free haircuts, manicures, massages, acupuncture, and other services.
“It may not look like it, but those are all forms of healing,” Manning said.
On top of her work for Urban Peace Movement, she offers life coaching, tarot card readings, Reiki, and mediumship through her business Evolving Soul Healing & Wellness. She’s also the author of a poetry book, “Deep Down in My Soul,” and will release her own deck of tarot cards later this year.
“I love using my own magic to help people access theirs,” she said, “because we all have it.”
ROSELYN ROMERO
Roselyn Romero covers public safety for The Oaklandside. She was previously The Oaklandside’s small business reporter as a 2023-24 Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism Fellow. Before joining the team, she was an investigative intern at NBC Bay Area and the inaugural intern for the Global Investigations team of The Associated Press through a partnership with the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting. She graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 2022 with a bachelor’s in journalism and minors in Spanish, ethnic studies, and women’s & gender studies. She is a proud daughter of Filipino immigrants and was born and raised in Oxnard, California.More by Roselyn Romero