Headshot of hector sanchez flores executive director

Executive Director

(408) 484-4291

[email protected]

Héctor Sánchez-Flores

Héctor Sánchez-Flores is the executive director of the National Compadres Network (NCN), where he leads the organization’s work to promote methods that build upon the cultural and personal assets of people and communities, especially for young men of color, to intervene and prevent violence, truancy, teen pregnancy and other life-limiting outcomes for children, teens, and their families.  NCN currently operates in numerous program areas, with the support of federal, state or private grants.

Hector has represented NCN in most areas of its work, including:

  • Working with judges, probation officers and others in the justice or social services systems to change how trauma-affected youth are served;
  • Through the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, teaching legislators in San Francisco firsthand about the importance of traditional “healing circles” as an overlay to traditional justice-system approaches;
  • Coordinating NCN school trainings in districts with especially intractable truancy, suspension rates or other issues, which focus on altering the entire school’s approach to trauma-affected students;
  • Increasing availability and training for La Cultura Cura and healing circles programs for women and families
  • Working on The California Endowment’s Sons and Brothers initiative in 22 locations that have been identified as having among the most intractable problems with boys and men of color failing to positively integrate into schools, families or community.
  • Serving the White House initiative My Brother’s Keeper, as one of many organizations helping the Obama Administration’s find ways of improving outcomes for young men and boys of color.

Hector is author/co-author of the brown paper “Lifting Latinos Up By Their ‘Rootstraps:’ Moving Beyond Trauma Through A Healing-Informed Framework for Latino Boys and Men. “

Prior to joining NCN, Héctor served for 12 years as a senior research associate with the Institute for Healthy Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco. Before that, he oversaw the development of innovative prevention programs that engaged diverse segments of the community and stakeholders in Santa Barbara County. 

Héctor resides in San José, California with his wife, Lucila Ramos-Sánchez and two children, Diego & Sophia.  Héctor is first generation Mexican-American, and is bilingual-literate in Spanish.