About Us

Chris Groeber, MSW,  has most recently been an Associate Instructor in Research, on faculty in the School of Social Work in the University of South Florida’s College of Behavioral and Community Sciences. Mr. Groeber has over 38 years of experience in child welfare. He has held numerous positions in the field in both public/government and private/for and non-profit sectors with a focus on children, youth, and their families who are at risk of deeper involvement with “the system”. He has worked in the areas of behavioral and social health where it impacted children, youth and their families. He is a nationally recognized speaker, coach, and mentor.

Chris has had a long working relationship with the Florida Department for Children and Families and it’s system of care to establish leadership curriculum, facilitate crucial conversations and provide coaching for regional leadership teams. Chris has also held positions at Morehead State University, Eastern Kentucky University and The University of Kentucky where he was principal investigator (PI) for two large Quality Improvement Center grants and PI for millions in State funding to improve out of home care, supports for youth independent living programs, support of adoptive parents and Department for Community Based Staff Development.

Currently, Chris and his wife have also been foster parents. Before his position at USF, Mr. Groeber was the Founder/CEO of Key Assets, a child serving organization that was part of an international conglomerate of child serving agencies in 12 countries with a focus on deinstitutionalizing dual diagnosis children and youth, creating community support and normalcy. Mr. Groeber was the American CEO for 7 years, where he worked tirelessly to deinstitutionalize traumatized children and youth with profound developmental delays and spectrum disorders and help them reside in their communities. Before that, Mr. Groeber was the founder director of non-profit policy, evaluation and consulting organization called the Center for Human Entrepreneurship Services. Chris left both organizations as thriving businesses.

Chris has developed numerous face to face and online courses in the area of child welfare and organizational development. He has authored articles, papers and tools for those working in the field focused on professional development of staff. Chris has been a policy wonk his entire career and has worked at many levels to help create child and youth supportive policy agendas. Chris is now the host of podcast programming that focuses on improving the professional development of future social workers as well as teaching both online and face to face in both USF’s MSW and BSW programs. Chris has discovered that being who he really is has helped him not only survive the difficult work, but thrive not only professionally, but personally. He believes that so much of what happens in his life is dependent on how he responds to it and has become peaceful through major personal losses, trauma and difficult relationships.

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