Deauntra Smith
The Spiritual Justice Show, we are honored to welcome Deauntra Smith, CEO of When The Leaves: Restorative Consulting—a visionary leader in restorative justice whose work centers healing, accountability, and liberation as pathways to lasting community transformation. Grounded in the truth that “hurt people hurt people, but healed people heal people,” Deauntra’s approach focuses on establishing community culture through Community Meetings, Community-Building Circles, and Restorative Conversations. His work invites schools and organizations to move beyond compliance and discipline, and instead cultivate spaces where young people learn, practice, and ultimately become experts in restorative philosophy themselves—fostering ownership, belonging, and shared responsibility within their communities.Deauntra Smith is a restorative justice practitioner, educator, and community leader who’s deeply committed to building spaces rooted in belonging, connection, and accountability. He currently serves as the Acting Director of Belonging and Connection and previously worked as the Assistant Director of Restorative Justice for the School District of Philadelphia, where he supported district-wide implementation, helped lead restorative justice research in schools, and contributed to the publication of two restorative justice guidebooks.
Deauntra grew up in the DMV (DC, Maryland, and Virginia) area, raised by young parents alongside his grandmother—an experience that shaped how he thinks about community, care, and shared responsibility. His work is grounded in equity literacy, cultural literacy, and racial literacy, and he’s especially focused on pushing conversations beyond traditional DEI toward practices rooted in liberation, healing, and real accountability.
Outside of work, Deauntra is a husband, a father of two, a football coach, and a lifelong comic book fan. Those roles show up in how he leads—through mentorship, storytelling, and imagination. At the heart of his work is a belief that restorative and progressive discipline, strong relationships, and honest conversations are how we create systems that are not just equitable, but truly human. On this podcast, Deauntra invites listeners to rethink how we respond to harm, strengthen community, and imagine what liberation can look like in practice.
