Living Forward Alliance

The Living Forward Alliance is dedicated to women with criminal justice histories who are on community supervision for drug related offenses and living in a residential facility under the supervision of the Harris County Community Supervision and Corrections Department.

It is a service and education program that gives them a singularly effective way to rethink their histories and rewrite their futures. This one-year program makes real freedom achievable, and it triggers a positive and sustainable shift in beliefs and behaviors that makes it possible for them to obtain work, rebuild their families and reclaim their place in the community.

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Who we are

The Living Forward Alliance team is a group of dedicated, accomplished professionals whose combined experience provides a strong and comprehensive foundation of successes on which to build.

The Leadership Team Board of Directors Partners & Supporters Financials

The Leadership Team

MARIA A. FRANCIS
CEO and Founder of Living Forward Alliance, Certified Effectiveness Coach (CEC)

Now, more than ever, good intentions are not enough to ensure the success of a worthwhile non-profit institution: It takes a solid business plan, the right people in place, impeccable ethics and a strong management team. Those are the things that Maria Francis, CEO and Founder of Living Forward Alliance, brings to this breakthrough program. In her more than-30-year career, Maria has launched several global businesses, successfully managed their international growth and sold them to blue chip companies. She has proven expertise in staff development and training, balancing multi-million dollar budgets, systems and procedure implementations, staff reorganization and management coaching. A Certified Effectiveness Coach from YESS and Ideal Coaching Academy, she is committed to contributing to individuals and organizations having a deep sense of purpose.

Maria was a board member of Youth at Risk; a non-profit organization committed to transforming the lives of youth in the City of Houston Juvenile Detention Program, and currently serves on the board of the Houston Food Bank.

BETTIE SPRUILL
Certified Management Effectiveness Coach (CMEC)

Over the last 30 years, Bettie Spruill, has led more than 20,000 individuals around the world in experiential effectiveness seminars and workshops in the areas of leadership, purpose, vision and high performance. Inspired and inspiring, Bettie is a management consultant, entrepreneur, public speaker and writer who is a proven expert in training leaders in the techniques that unlock effective communications and sustained breakthroughs. She was Senior Vice President for Lifespring, Inc., one of the largest training and seminar companies in the world, is the co-founder of Vistar Integrated Programs and Ideal Coaching, and is the designer of some of the leading coaching academies in the United States and Malaysia. She is a certified Master NeuroLinguistic Programming practitioner and a leader in the field of ontological and ecological coaching. In April 2000, Bettie adopted Begoro, a village in Ghana, Africa, and began her mission to raise the money and provide the developmental tools to help that community develop sustainable practices of principled success.

JOYCE CHRISTIE
Senior International Facilitator, Certified Effectiveness Coach (CEC), Master NeuroLinguistic Programmer

Joyce Christie, owner of Peak Performance Services in San Rafael, California, boasts a multifaceted array of accomplishments and the amazing ability to connect with people of differing ages, cultures, backgrounds and beliefs to help them improve their lives. She is an international facilitator, consultant, writer and communication technology expert whose work is grounded on her commitment to personal and professional transformation. After studying business management at the University of Phoenix, Joyce was certified as a NeuroLinguistic Practitioner, and later as a Certified Effectiveness Coach. She was instrumental in the successful delivery of a project for the Mayor’s Office of Chicago Cineplex-Odeon Project, and has designed and delivered leadership development programs for a variety of organizations in Japan, Canada, Russia, Hong Kong, Argentina, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Samoa and Malaysia. For the past ten years she has worked with troubled teens and their parents to foster family unity through education, growth and change. She is a partner in the service project in Begoro, Africa, sharing her global expertise with this village as the citizens embrace positive transformation.

DAN VALDEZ
Chairman of Living Forward Alliance, President of TheAttractorFactory.com and President and Founder of MyBizDoc.com

Since Dan Valdez has made it his life’s work to help everyday people accomplish extraordinary things, it’s only fitting that he chairs the board for the Living Forward Alliance. After attending the University of Texas at Austin, Dan began his business career at Abel Stationer’s, Office Outfitter of Austin, where he generated many unique and successful principles for growing business, which he shared in many trade articles. In 1985, Dan founded Stationery & Furnishings, Inc., based on advanced service practices that established a strong niche for his company in the highly competitive Houston market. He sold his firm in 1996 to Corporate Express and began mentoring small business owners. His goal: to empower business owners to achieve their obtainable vision and achieve greater profitability. Dan is a founding stakeholder of the University of Houston Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI), Chairman of the Student Retreat Program at the University of Houston, and served as the executive professor for CEI and founder of the CEI Entrepreneurial Mastery Program for Houston businesses. The University of Houston honored him as mentor of the Year in 1997. YESS and Ideal Coaching of Minneapolis, Minnesota also certifies Dan as a professional Ontological Coach.