The Ex-Prisoner Reentry Tournament: An Educational Game

On Friday, April 25, 2025, Dr. Mark Scholl and Lexi Lehman, one of our graduate students, presented The Ex-Prisoner Reentry Tournament: An Educational Game at the Association for Humanistic Counseling Conference in Safety Harbor, Florida.

The presenters discussed and facilitated an original game in which participants answered questions and completed tasks reflecting the challenges faced by formerly incarcerated clients returning to the community. A primary barrier to successful reintegration is biases held by members of society including a reductionistic view of ex-prisoners as dangerous and less than capable of full participation in mainstream society.

Consistent with humanism, the presenters asserted ex-prisoners should be viewed as whole human beings with a self-righting instinct and a capacity for self-actualization. In addition to promoting participants’ empathy for clients navigating the reentry process, the game is designed to impart useful information about barriers, programs, resources and strategies to returning citizens, forensic mental health counselors, and other reentry specialists.