Reaching Out From Within

About Us

Reaching Out from Within (ROFW) was established in 1982 in Kansas as an incarcerated-led program that empowers residents to transform themselves and heal each other.

ROFW is a national leader in rehabilitation programs for incarcerated individuals, and utilizes factual based concepts, welcoming volunteers and incarcerated men and women of all clerical and belief systems. ROFW’s rehabilitation program offers an opportunity for a “whole person” transformation for incarcerated individuals who want to make lasting changes in their behavior in order to become a role model for nonviolence, while still incarcerated, and becoming contributing members upon their return to our communities. The prison residents do this through leading their own meetings, helping each other transform, and healing each other.

Prisons are hard, unfriendly places. The main function is incarceration not rehabilitation. If residents hope to change their lives, they need the will and inner courage to do so against long odds.

Over forty years ago, a remarkable, self-help prison rehabilitation program was brought to the Kansas State Penitentiary by Lansing resident Greg Musselman and anti-bullying activist SuEllen Fried who persuaded officials to establish it inside the walls of correctional institutions. The idea just hit a chord. So many people had the hunger to understand the roots of violence in their lives – from child, spousal, sexual and substance abuse to issues with authority, anger management and other problems, the program became instantly accepted on the inside.