Staff – National Youth justice Network

Front Facing photo of Amore Alvarenga, Director of Transformative Leadership

Lucid Parks

Communications & Narrative Change Manager

Director of Transformative Leadership

Amore Alvarenga

Amore Alvarenga (They/Them/Theirs) believes in the internal power people embody to break cycles of toxicity creating thriving environments. Amore is especially committed to amplifying the collective power among queer, trans, gender non-binary, Black, brown, Indigenous and communities of color. They have supported individuals and communities by facilitating healing spaces including retreats centered on ancestral practices and restorative processes for serious harms throughout the Tongva lands of Los Angeles, the Lenape lands of New York City, and the Ohlone lands of Oakland. Amore designs and facilitates trauma-informed, restorative and healing justice trainings and workshops. In their previous role on the Restorative Justice Project Amore provided thought partnership to community based organizations and system actors holding restorative justice diversion. Amore is a 2019 Youth Justice Leadership Institute Alumni who launched a program dedicated to supporting LGBTQ+ youth and their families in New York City. They bring this experience and passion to their role as the Director of Transformative Leadership at the National Youth Justice Network where they will develop and expand the Division of Transformative Leadership which houses the Youth Justice Leadership Institute, Young Stewards of Justice – a community organizing and power-building model, and a Healing Justice program for advocates in the field of youth justice.

Amore earned a Bachelor’s of Arts in Psychology with a double minor in Womxn and Gender Studies, and Chicanx studies from Loyola Marymount University. La lengua materna de Amore es español. Ultimately Amore’s greatest teachers have been their deep connection to the Earth, their ancestors, and their abundantly loving community.

Executive Director

Fallon Speaker, Esq.

Fallon J. Speaker, Esq., is a feminist, reproductive justice transformer, social justice leader, and movement lawyer. She previously served as the Director of the Youth Justice Program (YJP) at the Legal Aid Justice Center (LAJC) in Virginia, where she led a team of attorneys, organizers, and social workers and served as a member of the Executive Leadership Team. During her tenure, she partnered with youth, their families, and their communities to achieve racial, social, and economic justice for all young people by dismantling systems that create and perpetuate poverty. Her methods of advocacy included individual legal representation for youth with unmet needs in the education, foster care, and juvenile justice systems; direct representation of parents in proceedings involving the family regulation system; impact litigation; community education and organizing; and local, statewide, and national policy advocacy.

Prior to joining LAJC, Fallon served as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and the Director of the Jeanette Lipman Family Law Clinic at the University of Richmond School of Law, where she taught students in a holistic legal clinic dedicated to working with communities affected by domestic relations, child welfare and dependency proceedings, and intersectional areas of the law such as reproductive justice, substance use, mental health, housing, immigration, and social services.

Prior to moving to Richmond, Fallon served as a Staff Attorney and Team Leader in the Family Defense Practice at The Bronx Defenders where she represented parents in child protective proceedings who were accused of abuse or neglect. She also served as an Adjunct Professor at Cardozo School of Law and the Director of the Mainzer Family Defense Clinic, where she taught and supervised students in child protective hearings. While in New York, Fallon became very active in policy, lobbying, community organizing, reproductive justice intersectionality, and movement lawyering.

Fallon is an active leader in the Fund our Schools Coalition, the Richmond Transparency and Accountability Project, and the Virginia Youth Justice Coalition. Fallon co-founded both the Virginia Family Preservation Project, which has recently expanded to the South East Family Freedom Alliance, and the Transformative Futures Program, which focuses on reducing youth criminalization and recidivism. She serves on the Virginia Bar Association’s Commission on the Needs of Children and the Advisory Board for the Movement for Family Power and is a proud Black and Latino Chagemaker Fellow of the Rockwood Leadership Institute.

Fallon centers her work life balance by striving to live a well-life. She enjoys boxing, yoga, hiking, running, and outdoor activities with her dog.

Communications & Narrative Change Manager

Lucid Parks

Lucid Parks (they/them/theirs) is a social justice-focused communicator, writer, organizer, traveler, outdoorsperson, and educator whose dream is liberation for everyone. Their biggest passion is for using storytelling as a vehicle for building empathy and social change.

Lucid has worked on communications strategy for nonprofits and social movement groups since 2013. During that time they have worked on a wide variety of different issues, including everything from student debt to prison abolition to environmental justice to public school funding. This has included roles at the Legal Aid Justice Center, Delta Community Supports, Fund Our Schools VA, Action for the Climate Emergency, and more. They also have a strong background specifically in working directly with youth, having spent seven years working in extracurricular and mentorship programs for young people ages 5-19.

In addition to their work at NYJN, Lucid bottomlines communications for the Fund Our Schools Virginia Coalition and is an active member of Southerners on New Ground and their local mutual aid organization, which runs a free store down the street from their house. They also run a small business where they live in Richmond, Virginia. In their free time they like to hike, write poetry, spend time with friends, carve wooden spoons, train their dog, and travel with their partner in their camper van.