Steve Gross

Steve Gross, MSW, is a clinical social worker, social entrepreneur, and the founder and chief playmaker of the Life is Good Playmaker Project. Gross has dedicated his career to teaching others how to build healing, transformative relationships with children facing overwhelming adversity. He began his career running playgroups for homeless children in Greater Boston.

Gross's approach to trauma-informed care has been recognized by leading experts in the field, leading him to support communities impacted by war, natural disasters, gun violence, and poverty in locations such as Ukraine and Haiti. He founded Project Joy, a Boston-based grassroots nonprofit, which later merged into the Life is Good Kids Foundation, becoming the foundation's primary program under the name Life is Good Playmakers.

Drawing on extensive field experience, Gross and his team developed the Playmaker program, a series of workshops, retreats, and tools that serve more than 16,000 teachers and early childhood educators, helping over one million children overcome trauma each year. The Playmaker Project provides training and support for thousands of childcare professionals, enabling them to build healing relationships with children and families and positively impacting the lives of more than 1.8 million children annually.

Gross has earned global recognition for pioneering play-based trauma interventions in countries including Haiti, Ukraine, Rwanda, Turkey, Denmark, Japan, and the United States. His expertise has been sought in response to major catastrophes, such as Hurricane Katrina, earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, and the Newtown school shooting. His work is featured in the New York Times bestseller "The Body Keeps the Score."

As a speaker and thought leader in trauma-informed education and child development, Gross delivers presentations that use research, humor, and personal stories to demonstrate how optimistic leadership can foster resilience and high performance in organizations. He provides evidence-based strategies for building resilient cultures, harnessing optimism, and creating environments that support creativity, collaboration, and engagement. Gross has also presented at TEDx, emphasizing that play is a transformative approach to healing and inspiring communities and organizations.