Colorado is no stranger to identity-based violence.

Demystifying Problems

For decades, the Ku Klux Klan actively recruited across the state. In the 1970s, Vail was targeted by Earth Liberation Front members, and as recently as 2015, the FBI noted that Colorado’s military bases faced a security threat from the Islamic State and its U.S. followers. 

Enter the Colorado Resilience Collaborative (CRC), a new DU-based interdisciplinary initiative launched in October 2017 and housed within the Graduate School of Professional Psychology’s international disaster psychology program. Supported by funding from Colorado’s U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Department of Homeland Security, it’s designed to focus on the persisting issue of targeting by extremist groups, in part by providing therapeutic services through GSPP’s Trauma and Disaster Recovery Clinic. The collaborative also promotes healing at the individual, family, organizational and community levels.

The initiative is particularly timely, given that many extremist groups are looking to turbo-charge recruitment efforts. With that in mind, the CRC’s research efforts strive to understand what might make someone receptive to recruitment. On the education front, CRC provides workshops for partners across the state and spreads the word about how communities and individuals can decrease risk while increasing prevention efforts.