Dr. Delaine Smith-Clark
Meet The Author
Dr. Delaine Smith-Clark is a dedicated champion of the victims’ movement, grounded in advocacy, empowerment, education, and service. With extensive experience in domestic violence and sexual assault services, Dr. Smith-Clark has devoted her career to supporting survivors and their families while helping to strengthen the professionals and systems that serve them.
Dr. Smith-Clark works at a hospital-based rape crisis center, where she provides training and support to victim advocates and assists in ensuring that victims and their families receive compassionate, trauma-informed services. In addition to supporting survivors directly, she has trained, mentored, and led advocates, helping professionals build the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to serve victims of violence effectively.
Her work centers on the belief that advocates need support and education as much as the survivors they serve. Through training, coaching, collaboration, and professional development, Dr. Smith-Clark equips advocates to respond to survivors with empathy, respect, compassion, and an understanding of the complexities of trauma.
Throughout her career, Dr. Smith-Clark has built and sustained positive relationships with local interagency organizations, healthcare professionals, community partners, and other service providers. She understands the importance of collaboration in creating stronger systems of support for survivors and has worked extensively to connect organizations and individuals around the shared goal of improving services for victims of violence.
Dr. Smith-Clark possesses a Doctoral Degree in Leadership from Regent University, a Master of Divinity from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University, where she graduated cum laude in 2011, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Trinity Washington University.
Education and professional development are central to Dr. Smith-Clark's work. She has organized, coordinated, and promoted numerous trainings, conferences, retreats, and community events designed to educate, encourage, and empower individuals. Her areas of interest include victim advocacy, domestic violence, sexual assault, trauma-informed services, leadership development, empowerment, resilience, and community engagement.
“…known for her powerful presence and ability to connect across diverse audiences, Dr. Delaine embodies leadership in action, showing up where she is needed most and equipping others to rise…”
Dr. Smith-Clark is also the author of Mission Possible: Embracing Life’s Challenges When It Seems Impossible. Through her book, she encourages readers to recognize that difficult circumstances do not have to determine the course of their lives. Her message emphasizes possibility, perseverance, purpose, and the courage to continue moving forward even when the path ahead seems uncertain.
Her commitment to service and leadership has provided opportunities to participate in both national and international forums. Dr. Smith-Clark is a Fellow of the Harris Institute Global and participated in the 2025 Oxford Colloquy at New College, University of Oxford, as an invited International Leadership Forum Delegate.
Dr. Smith-Clark's dedication to service has earned her numerous awards and honors. She is the recipient of the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award for Volunteer Services from President Joe Biden and the 2020 Purple Light-Bulb Award from the Prince George’s County Sheriff’s Department, recognizing Outstanding Partnership, Support, and Fearless Leadership. She has also been featured in local and online publications highlighting her advocacy, community involvement, and service.
Outside of her professional work, Dr. Smith-Clark has a lifelong love of music and has been singing in choirs since childhood. She is an Alumni Member of Patrick Lundy & The Ministers of Music and has had the opportunity to travel internationally through her involvement in music, including participating in the 1998 World’s Fair in Lisbon, Portugal.
Above all, Dr. Smith-Clark is committed to people. Whether she is supporting a survivor, training an advocate, building a community partnership, organizing an event, mentoring others, or encouraging someone through her writing, her goal remains the same: to help people recognize their strength, discover possibilities, and move forward with hope.
Dr. Smith-Clark is a wife, mother of two, and proud grandmother of five. She enjoys shopping, fine dining, traveling, music, and spending meaningful time with her family.
Her life's work reflects a simple but powerful belief: what seems impossible does not have to remain impossible.
Through advocacy, education, empowerment, and service, Dr. Delaine Smith-Clark continues to make a difference in the lives of survivors, advocates, families, and communities.