+2 to Life: Tabletop Role-Playing Games for Personal, Social, and Civic Health
Delivery Mode
Live Online
Date
August 13, 2026
Details
- Time: 9:30 - 3:30 pm PT / 11:30 - 5:30 pm ET (with breaks)
- Continuing Education Credits (CE): 3-4
- Discounts: AU Students & Alumni: Enter code TTRPG50 at checkout for 50% off
Description
Tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) are far more than entertainment. They are research-supported tools for learning, connection, and growth. This professional learning opportunity is designed for educators, librarians, therapists, caregivers, and community leaders who want to harness the power of collaborative storytelling and structured play to foster creativity, empathy, and civic engagement in the people they serve.
Participants will explore the research base behind TTRPGs and engage with practical strategies for integrating them into classrooms, libraries, therapeutic settings, and community spaces. This course supports a shift toward playful, participant-driven approaches that center collaboration, perspective-taking, and meaningful reflection, values that align directly with the CCDEI framework’s commitment to inclusive, equitable, and community-centered practice.
Learning Goals
- Develop a working understanding of core TTRPG structures and how they function in facilitated play.
- Build confidence and practical skills for leading TTRPG sessions across a variety of professional settings, such as classrooms, libraries, therapeutic environments, and community spaces.
- Expand their capacity to adapt TTRPG facilitation to support a wide range of learners and participation needs.
- Strengthen their ability to connect TTRPG programming to learning, wellness, and the broader mission of their professional context.
- Grow their skills in communicating the educational and well-being value of TTRPGs to the people they serve and their communities, such as students, clients, families, and institutional stakeholders.
- Apply course learning to the design of future programming involving games and collaborative storytelling in their own professional setting.
Instructor
Adam Davis
Facilitator of Game-Based Human Flourishing
Adam has been using games to build community, connection, resilience, and joy for nearly 15 years. In 2017 he co‐founded Game to Grow, a nonprofit that has served hundreds of youth worldwide through its Social Flourishing and Hospital Gaming programs. Under his leadership, the groups grew to support more than 150 participants each week, and he trained thousands of practitioners across six
continents to use role‐playing games in classrooms, clinics, hospitals, and libraries.
He also co‐created Critical Core, a therapeutic role‐playing game now
in the hands of more than seven thousand therapists, educators, and
families worldwide. Along the way, he had the opportunity to share
this work in over 70 presentations at more than 30 conferences,
including a keynote for the Washington Association of Marriage and
Family Therapy. His writing has been published in five books, and
has been fortunate to have his work featured by outlets such as The
New York Times, BBC, TIME, National Geographic, and Forbes.
Through all of this, Adam remains grateful to have been part of a growing global
movement bringing the life‐enriching power of games to classrooms,
clinics, hospitals, and homes around the world.
Accommodations
To request accommodations for special needs, please email the Program Administrator at [email protected].
Terms & Conditions
Cancellations received in writing 7 days before the date of the event are entitled to a full refund. Cancellations received between 6 and 3 days before an event are entitled to a 50% refund. Cancellations 2 or less days before an event will not be eligible for a refund.