Don
Smarto
President
Don Smarto is the President of Youth Direct Ministries, a national outreach to high risk youth, headquartered in Dallas, Texas.
He has been an executive with several national ministries including Good News Jail & Prison Ministry and was Director of Prison Ministries at the Billy Graham Center for twelve years where he worked closely with members of the Billy Graham team.
Don has several earned degrees and taught courses at six colleges and universities over a thirty year period. At Wheaton College he taught Juvenile Delinquency and Prison Evangelism courses and at Trinity University Criminal Justice courses.
With a specialization in the area of high risk youth, Don served on the Illinois Governor's Commission on Gang Violence and the Attorney General's Task Force on Child Abuse. He is currently a consultant to the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice and authored their Mentor Training Manual.
Don's work with troubled youth began in 1972 as a teacher at DuSable High School on Chicago's south side. He served as a juvenile probation officer, an assistant warden of a maximum security juvenile facility, and was appointed director of a residential adolescent drug and alcohol abuse program in an Illinois county of one million people which was featured on national television on NBC News in 1983.
Don Smarto Biography
A prolific communicator, Don has written articles for professional journals and national magazines including Christianity Today, Moody, Campus Life, Decision Magazine, Christian Counseling, Christian Reader, Baker's Encyclopedia of Psychology, and the Dictionary of World Missions.
Don is the author of eight widely read books including Justice & Mercy (forward by Billy Graham), Pursued (forward by Joni Eareckson Tada), Keeping Ex-Offenders Free, Lost & Found (endorsed by Charles Colson), and Family Secrets.
His opinions have been quoted in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times.
Don is the host of a daily Dallas radio program Parenting Today's Youth and has appeared on over 500 radio and television programs.
A popular speaker, Don Smarto speaks to over 10,000 youth each year, has lectured at 40 colleges and universities, and has been the keynote speaker at 85 conferences, and 475 seminars and banquets.