A lifetime resident of the Acre section of Lowell, JuanCarlos has dedicated himself to strengthening his community and the youth within it. His involvement has included peer leadership for Planned Parenthood, youth organizing for Coalition for a Better Acre, program coordinating for the YWCA Tobacco Prevention Program, six years of gang prevention and intervention as a Streetworker, and most recently, he serves as the Streetworker Supervisor for the United Teen Equality Center (UTEC).

As the Streetworker Supervisor at UTEC, JuanCarlos supports the Streetworker staff in providing comprehensive outreach, gang intervention, and conflict resolution/mediation services to those youth who are most disconnected in the city. The Streetworkers provide crisis intervention to youth on a 24/7 on-call basis. JuanCarlos provides trainings to other youth organizations on topics ranging from gang intervention to street mediation. As the conflict resolution/mediation specialist at UTEC, JuanCarlos uses a strength-based approach in developing meaningful communication between conflicting parties. He has completed both the Comprehensive Outreach and Supervisory Training provided by the Community Health Education Center of Lowell.

JuanCarlos is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with concentrations in Psychology and Legal Studies. Of Puerto Rican descent, JuanCarlos is a native speaker of Spanish.