Gail S. Day, MSW, LSW, is a state-licensed social worker. She received her MSW from the University of Illinois at Chicago, Jane Adams School of Social Work, in 2002. She was employed by Youth Guidance, a school-based not-for-profit agency, for 25 years before retiring in July 2021. Her work had been in both mental health and substance abuse programs for over 20 years. Her work has addressed a broad range of adolescent issues, including depression, trauma, anxiety, behavior disorders, academic school-related difficulties, social school-related difficulties, grief and loss, anger management, and substance use. She is the founder of the Working on Womanhood (WOW) Program, created and launched in 2011. WOW is an innovative school-based counseling and clinical mentoring program. She has supervised undergraduate and graduate students from several colleges and universities in the Chicago area. Mrs. Day has conducted several workshops, presentations, and trainings on adolescent development and the impact of trauma on youth, particularly girls of color, for parents, teachers, and mental health professionals.

She presented at the National School of Mental Health Conference in October 2017. She has provided insight and knowledge on several community and university panels, ranging from Lurie’s Children’s Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, to Harvard Law School in Cambridge, MA, about the impact of trauma on girls of color and how the Working on Womanhood Program is having transformational impacts on that population. She also co-authored a paper, Working on Womanhood (WOW): A Participatory Formative Evaluation of a Community-Developed Intervention. She was also instrumental in partnering her team with the University of Chicago Education Lab’s 2017-2018, 2018-2019 randomized study of WOW, which resulted in a 22% reduction in posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and significant decreases in anxiety and depression.

She holds certifications in Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS), think first, non-violent crisis intervention, mediation/neighborhood restorative justice, and trauma. Since her retirement, she has been the founder and CEO of Cocoon Consulting, which provides therapeutic, coaching, and professional development to small, not-for-profit startups and individuals who are willing to take the journey of discovering who they are and what it is that makes them unique. My heart will always be with the WOW program, which is why Cocoon Consulting presented the first "2023 Cocoon Consulting 360 Achievement Award" to a senior at CVS High School. Her motto is to be the best version of yourself.