Meet Dr. Dana R Stevens
My Story
My life has been shaped by two journeys that could not be more different, yet both transformed my identity, my faith, and my purpose. One forced me to confront the shame that tried to define who I was, and the other opened my eyes to the realities of racism and my own awakening inside it. These experiences broke me open in ways I never expected and led me into places that reshaped how I see God, myself, and the world. They are the reason I speak the way I speak and fight for what I fight for.
My First Journey: Confronting Shame
My first journey began when I was seventeen and felt the unmistakable touch of God. I believed I had been chosen for a purpose, yet I spent decades wrestling with shame, not for what I had done, but for who I was. My sexual identity became the part of me I was taught to fear, deny, and hide.
My Second Journey: Confronting Racism
My second journey began in March of 1994 when five young Black men attacked me and left me with three words that changed my life forever. “Welcome to racism.” The bruises healed, but those words pierced my soul. They shattered the world I thought I understood and forced me to confront a reality I had never been taught to see.
My Spiritual Journey: Awakening to Deeper Truth
My spiritual journey began with a powerful encounter with God at seventeen, but it was a shocking experience years later on Chicago’s west side that sent me searching for deeper truth. What followed was a thirty year walk through racism, privilege, pain, and revelation as I lived among the very communities that transformed me. Along the way, God dismantled what I thought I knew, opened my eyes to truths I had never been taught, and pulled me into a faith far more real and intimate than the religion I grew up with. This is the path that shaped my heart, my purpose, and the man I am today.
My Voice as a Speaker
My journey has been one of courage, transformation, and spiritual awakening, shaped by thirty years of walking beside communities, confronting hard truths, and learning to listen to the voice of God. My story is raw, honest, and deeply human, and everything I share comes from the places where I have wrestled, healed, and grown. What you will read next is the fuller narrative behind the messages I carry, a journey that continues to touch hearts around the world and one that I am honored to share.
My Journey as a Mentor
For decades, I have devoted my life to mentoring young people and families across Chicago, from the streets of Chicago, to Cabrini Green to church basements, school hallways, and even the cells of Cook County Jail and the Juvenile Detention Center. I have walked beside gang members through Godly Street Talk, led safe spaces where hundreds of youth gathered each week, and served as a Restorative Practices Coach where students would light up and shout, “It’s Mr. Stevens!” whenever I walked in. These experiences shaped my heart, my calling, and the work I do today. This is the story behind the journey.
If you want it even shorter, more poetic, or more spiritual, I can refine it.
My Journey as a Restorative Practices Coach
My journey into restorative practices began long before I held the title of coach. It started in 1992 on the Ojibwe Reservation in Minnesota, where I first learned that people heal in circles, not rows, and that every story carries a heartbeat. That lesson followed me into the Juvenile Detention Center in Chicago, into Cook County Jail, into school hallways, and into every community I served. Over the years I received formal training, lived experience, and wisdom from thousands of young people whose pain taught me that accountability means nothing without connection and that hope only grows where people feel heard. By the time I became a Restorative Practices Coach, I was not teaching a method, I was living a belief system. This is the story of how circles, community, and compassion shaped the way I mentor, lead, and see humanity.
