About the Author
Who Is Versace Donn?
Before there was a Situationship Survival Academy, there was a lifetime of experiences that helped create it.
Versace Donn was born in the late 1970s in Oakland, California, into a large family. With a father serving in the military and a mother who stayed home to raise the family, his childhood gave him an early look at family structure, commitment, sacrifice, and what it takes to keep a household together. His father's military career also gave him something many children don't experience—an opportunity to see life outside of his own neighborhood. As a young child, he lived overseas in Germany for several years before returning to the United States and growing up in different communities throughout California, from Northern California to Southern California.
By his early twenties, his life had taken another important turn. At approximately 20 years old, Versace Donn entered the mental-health field, working in a Level 14 group home in Stockton, California, serving adolescents and their families. What began as a job developed into years of hands-on experience working alongside clinical teams, psychiatrists, counselors, trainers, youth, and families. Over the course of his career, he received training in family counseling, adolescent counseling, crisis intervention, treatment planning, staff development, management, and other areas related to working with youth and families. His responsibilities grew from direct care to becoming a trainer, mid-level supervisor, crisis responder, and member of management responsible for guiding staff while communicating and working with families.
But the Situationship Survival Academy wasn't created from professional experience alone.
Versace Donn has lived some of these lessons himself. He is a father of three children by two mothers, a grandfather of two, and the son of parents who remain together today. He has experienced marriage, relationships, breakups, situationships, mistakes, victories, raising children, watching a family evolve, and learning some lessons the easy way—and plenty of others the hard way. Rather than pretending to have lived a perfect life, he brings those experiences into the classroom alongside what he learned professionally. That combination is the heart of this Academy.
The Situationship Survival Academy was created to take those years of experience and turn them into something people can actually use. It isn't about Versace Donn standing in front of the class pretending to have every answer. It's about creating honest conversations, asking uncomfortable questions, examining our patterns, laughing at some of the craziness we've all experienced, and learning how to make better decisions about love, relationships, family, and ourselves.
His vision is for the Situationship Survival Academy to begin online in the United States and ultimately reach people around the world—people from different backgrounds, cultures, families, and relationship experiences who all have one thing in common:
We could all use a little more clarity.
Because when people gain clarity and get their head out of the fog, they can make better choices. When they make better choices, they can build stronger foundations. And when people begin changing their own lives, they put themselves in a position to change the lives of the people around them.
Gain Clarity • Build Relationships • Change Lives.
Welcome to the Academy.
— Versace Donn