Adelia Davis is a Detroit native who graduated from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor where she studied biopsychology, cognition, and neuroscience. In 2017, she was awarded the Wallenberg Fellowship which allowed her to carry out a year-long, global self-directed service project. She chose to spend that time in Cape Town, South Africa observing the similarities of Black representation in children’s literature in comparison to the United States. She ran after-school reading programs to promote a positive self-image in Black youth in Cape Town.
Adelia sees storytelling as means of individual and community uplift. Adelia has since started her own organization, Story Shifters, that offers youth programming and education resources, including her own children’s books: Nia’s Question and Noelle’s Beats. Additionally, she has collaborated with other literacy nonprofit organizations through part-time work with Wellspring Detroit and Burst into Books on Chicago’s Southside.
Adelia has been guided by her strong belief in the healing power of storytelling. She recently finished her master's in clinical social work at the University of Chicago in the Global Social Development Practice Program of Study. Adelia has passionately combined her background in storytelling and literacy, with the new knowledge she has gained through her graduate studies to explore the nuances of social issues. She demonstrated this during her internship at the Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center where she developed a six-week psycho-education group for young survivors and their caregivers. Her curriculum integrated the Attachment, Regulation, and Competency (ARC) framework, storytelling, and art therapy practices to support participants in processing their trauma in an age-appropriate setting with children’s books that have characters reflective of the children’s identities. These experiences and skillsets now inform her continued work through Story Shifters and in her new position as a Child Parent Psychotherapist. Adelia is eager to continue learning and serving with a global perspective and focus on relationship-building.
