When a student and his guest were fatally shot in a dorm on the University of Colorado’s campus in Colorado Springs less than a month ago, Chancellor Jennifer Sobanet’s next call after alerting the system’s president was to her own Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience.

She knew students, employees and the community would need the unique center’s help with processing the unexpected news and healing, she said Monday, in kicking off the institute’s first conference for its GRIT program, short for Greater Resilience Information Toolkit.

The loss of those two lives occurred in the same week as the death of another student who had been working out in the gym, which compounded the trauma, Sobanet said, holding back tears.

“Sometimes we are challenged to our core with different personal and community tragedies,” she said. “Learning how to capture inner strengths becomes so critical.”

The free GRIT training, online at grit.uccs.edu, provides tangible aid for anyone working through stress and psychological trauma and those wanting to help others navigate the fog.

It’s about harnessing the determination and spirit that leads a person to bounce back after such life events as a natural disaster, a public health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, a car accident, death of a loved one, divorce, illness, job loss or other large and small situations that may seem in insurmountable at first but that can be overcome, said Dr. Charles “Chip” Benight, the institute’s executive director and creator of GRIT.

“Think of what mountains you have climbed in the last couple of years — adversities, stresses, challenges — how you’ve come through it with your own strength and capacity,” he said. “We want to help people find that inner place that helps people go forward when they think they can’t.”

One of the keys in coping with problems is mindset — thinking “I can handle this,” instead of “I can’t handle this,” Benight said.

Also identified as strengthening agents are having social connectedness, or a support system of friends and relatives to turn to; developing self-efficacy, or confidence in controlling one’s behavior, motivation and social environment; and focusing on what’s working and how to expand those concepts.

When the recent tragedies happened at UCCS, the institute activated a community system it’s been building since opening four years ago, when the global pandemic was spreading.

El Paso County now has 2,000 GRIT coaches, from health care workers and police officers to CEOs, students, military veterans and everyone in between who have taken the GRIT training and who are able to help others get through a life challenge.

They were notified of the campus event and asked to check in with their circle of connections to be a personal contact and provide referrals for professional assistance, such as the 988 Colorado crisis line.

“We were able to tag anybody by ZIP code and send out a supportive email,” said Nicole Weis, director of community training and engagement for the Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience.

Coaches learn how to have meaningful conversations with people who might be hurting.

“The most important step is the first one: make a connection when stresses happen,” Weis said. “Reach out immediately, say, ‘You’re on my mind, I’m thinking about you.’ That alone can be really powerful, to know they’ve been noticed and someone is thinking about them,” Weis said.

A new phone app for GRIT, which was funded by federal pandemic-relief funds, launched Monday during the conference.

The tool will give immediacy to coaches and improve networking and communications, Weis said.

The GRIT program has spread to 36 other countries, Benight said, with the institute at UCCS being the international headquarters.

“Our hope is to have Colorado Springs labeled as GRIT City, to have a network of 25,000 coaches to activate,” Benight said. The network currently has 3,500 coaches, according to Weis.

A study Benight conducted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks showed that just 2% of people affected sought professional psychiatric care.

“Seventy-five to 85% of people just went to family or friends, which made me wonder why we don’t train family and friends to be that bridge to provide strength and support,” Benight said.

The growth of GRIT is proving Benight’s idea works, Weis said.

Because athletes regularly get knocked down and have to get back up and try harder the next day, they’re natural role models for what resilience looks like, said Hunter Kemper, the most decorated U.S. triathlete in history, including his gold medal victory in the 2003 Pan American Games.

“Every day is a learning lab of resilience for athletes,” he said. “There’s a lot of pressure, and with every defeat, every difficult training you’re faced with this level of resiliency. You have to problem solve and persevere through injuries. It’s not a straight line to the podium.”

Kemper is an athlete ambassador for the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museums’  “Becoming Your Personal Best,” its own resilience program that has a lesson plan for use in fourth through 12th grade classrooms, including in El Paso County.

Children learn problem-solving, building confidence, persevering in tough times, identifying strengths and weaknesses and positive self-talk such as, “We can do this. If we don’t, that’s OK, we’ll try it again. We can learn from that.”

Perhaps the most shining example of overcoming challenges is six-time Olympic Gold Medalist Amy Van Dyken-Rouen, who nearly a decade ago became paralyzed in an ATV crash.

In a saucy and spicy keynote address, the memorable swimmer-turned-NBC Sports broadcaster said she learned as a child facing severe asthma and allergies to tune out the naysayers, including teammates she had looked up to, coaches who didn’t believe in her, and, in the beginning, her dad.

But overcoming setback after setback, Van Dyken-Rouen, who trained at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs from 1994 to 2000, proved to herself and the world what’s become her mantra: “Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do?”