Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonathan Alvarez.
Hi Jonathan, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
A dedicated change agent, Alvarez is a Youth Development and Juvenile Justice Reform Advocate in Westchester County, NY. After serving a 13-year prison term, he returned home in 2018 motivated to help the same community he once negatively impacted. In 2019, he joined the Yonkers My Brother’s Keeper initiative to serve as a mentor and staff committee member – touring public schools to share his lived experiences as a gang influenced youth and a previously incarcerated person. Driven to deter criminal-involved adolescents from a destructive path, in 2020 he co-founded a program-based mentorship non-for-profit organization called 914United Inc. The core mission is to provide the justice involved population with a unique and nonconventional form of mentorship – practicing the model: “Accepting individuals as they are and meeting them where they are at.” His mission eventually landed him an opportunity to work in the Youth Offender Program at the Westchester County Department of Corrections, where ironically, he was once a detained youth. Valued for his educational achievements in prison, he was recruited to serve as Academic Outreach Coordinator – to provide supportive counseling and educational assistance to incarcerated learners. In addition to serving the incarcerated population, he joined the Yonkers SNUG Outreach team to help combat the spike in gun violence and supervised two high-risk catchment areas.
In 2021, he was promoted to Case Management to assist the social work department in supporting the outreach staff and in addressing community and personal trauma. Within the same year, the Yonkers City Council President honored him for Hispanic Heritage month as one of few Latinx community leaders in the City of Yonkers. Following this honorary recognition, he received his first widespread publication in the LoHud Journal news, which highlighted his post-prison successes as a nonprofit executive. Finally, in 2022 he was awarded a scholarship to participant on the Digital Equity, Corrections System, and Returning Citizens panel for the Net Digital Inclusion Alliance conference in Portland, Oregon. Today, Alvarez continues to be a voice for criminal justice reform who speaks from lived experiences and as a practitioner in the field.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It was not a smooth process. Some of the struggles included my distress with managing a fulltime workload for a master’s program at Parsons while working two part time jobs. This pressure caused me to undergo a slight mental breakdown and almost influenced me to jump back into selling drugs and ultimately giving up on pursing a positive lifestyle. In addition, the most recent struggle has been learning leadership skills in real time while managing a new nonprofit with a team of 12 members. The struggle is managing the organization while balancing life, work, and privacy.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My work consists of juvenile justice reform and reentry mentorship. Given my personal experience within the criminal justice system since a youth, I use my lived experiences along with professional background in the social work field to educate and empower high-risk youth and the formerly incarcerated. I earned my bachelor’s degree while in prison and transformed myself into a man with a vision and a purpose. And I enjoy developing programming around my life lessons that can benefit others walking a similar pathway. Professionals and community members often view me as an anomaly since I’ve mastered the art of code switching and demonstrating the ability to navigate different spaces and network
What matters most to you? Why?
The community – because it takes a village or a commUNITY to raise our children. If we all invest into our community much more, we increase the chances of change the course of our families further. By community investment, I mean sharing vital information that can increase physical, mental, emotional, and financial health. Investment most certainly includes advocating to bring resources and services to those in need of them most to help positively impact their lives.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.914united.com
- Instagram: @J.o.-envisioned
