FOUNDER & PRESIDENT
FRED GRIFFIN
Incarcerated at 16, he spent 16 years learning what is missing in the justice system. Fred believes the work that matters, the work that actually changes outcomes, happens before the system ever gets involved. Prevention over punishment. Investment over intervention. Get to the young person first.
Fred Griffin was 16 years old when he entered the system.
He would spend the next 16 years inside it, watching. Learning. Unlearning. And paying very close attention to everything that was missing, everything that was broken, and everything that, in a different world, could have kept him out of that place altogether.
That is where this organization was born. Not in a meeting. Not on a whiteboard. In a cell—and in the slow, hard work of becoming someone new inside a system that was never designed to help him do that.
What He Saw
During those 16 years, Fred saw what happened to young people when no one caught them early enough. He saw what it looked like when someone came home with nothing waiting for them, no real support, no one trained to understand what they had been through, no bridge between who they were in there and who they were supposed to become out here. He knew that feeling personally. And he knew that the people who were supposed to help, the counselors, the case workers, the staff, were often just as unprepared as the young people they were serving. Not because they didn't care. Because no one had ever given them the right tools.
Fred came home carrying all of that. He could have set it down and just moved forward with his own life. Instead, he built something out of it.
Experience Since Release
Group Facilitation on College Campus
Group Facilitation on College Campus
Group Facilitation on College Campus
He went on to facilitate post-incarceration support groups at Cal State LA, working alongside justice-impacted students navigating reentry, identity, and what it means to belong somewhere new.
Motivational Speaker
Group Facilitation on College Campus
Group Facilitation on College Campus
He has been a guest speaker on Podcasts and has paneled at Beyond the Bars, colleges, community events and workshops, some of the most respected gatherings at the intersection of justice and community change.
Curriculum Co-Development
Group Facilitation on College Campus
Post Incarceration Support Expertise
He co-developed curriculum for justice-involved youth that is now the backbone of COC's training model.
Post Incarceration Support Expertise
Post Incarceration Support Expertise
Post Incarceration Support Expertise
He created a Post-Incarceration Syndrome framework that gives both providers and returning citizens a language for what reentry actually does to a person, and what real recovery from it requires.
Certified Peer Support Specialist
Post Incarceration Support Expertise
Certified Peer Support Specialist
He earned his Certified Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist license
SUD Counselor
Post Incarceration Support Expertise
Certified Peer Support Specialist
He is finishing the last weeks of his final semester to become a Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Counselor.
Where the Name Comes From
While Fred was incarcerated, he witnessed a moment that never left him. A friend was trying to talk to someone who was wound tight, scanning every room, every conversation, for something to be upset about, looking for the next contradiction, the next reason to push back. Fred's friend stopped him and said something simple: stop looking for things to fight. Look for ways to work with people. Then he put it plainly: collaboration over contradiction.
Fred held onto those words. Because they named something he had been quietly learning the hard way, that opposition doesn't move anything forward. That the people who actually change things are the ones who figure out how to find common ground and build from there. That phrase became the name of the organization because it isn't just a motto. It is the posture Fred has chosen to bring to every room, every relationship, and every broken system he is trying to help fix.
Why Youth? Why Now?
Fred's commitment to young people is not philosophical. It is personal. He knows exactly what was not there for him at 16. He knows the specific shape of what was missing, the resources that didn't exist, the relationships that weren't offered, the interventions that came too late or not at all. He doesn't have to imagine what a young person in the system needs. He lived it.
He also believes, without reservation, that the current justice system is set up backwards. It waits for harm to happen and then punishes the person who caused it. That is not safety. That is reaction.
The Partnership
Fred knows that changing the way systems work takes more than passion and lived experience, though those are irreplaceable. It takes clinical rigor, too. That is why he chose to build COC in genuine partnership with a Licensed Clinician with over 25 years of experience working at the intersection of trauma, justice, and healing. Together they are doing something neither could do alone: equipping the frontline providers who work with justice-involved youth every day with the training, the frameworks, and the self-awareness to actually be effective. Not just well-meaning. Effective.
The collaboration is itself a demonstration of what COC teaches. Lived experience and clinical expertise are not opposites. They are partners. And when they work together, something shifts.
An Invitation
Fred Griffin seeks to collaborate with individuals and organizations who share this vision, people with similar stories, similar commitments, and the integrity to match. If you have walked through hard places and come out with something worth giving back, and you believe prevention is more powerful than punishment, there is a place for you in this work.
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