Chapter 6. Collaborative Care and Community Health

For care providers, addressing the psychological impacts of climate change calls for more than just client care and conversations. We also need to engage in a collaborative, community-centered approach to client care. In contrast to traditional models that focus on the individual, collaborative care and community health emphasize multi-disciplinary, team-based care, integration with community resources, and collective responses that share responsibility. This chapter explores how working in teams across disciplines and engaging natural community supports can better help patients manage climate-related distress. It highlights approaches that reduce the burden on individuals by leveraging collective and systemic support, thereby promoting authentic, culturally safe care. We also examine the importance of supporting community resilience rather than supplanting it – recognizing and bolstering existing strengths in communities. Finally, an In Focus case study from Canada illustrates these principles in action through an Indigenous-led initiative fostering youth resilience to climate change. Throughout, the guidance remains warm, evidence-based, and rooted in real-world practice, aiming to equip health and social care professionals with practical strategies for collaborative, community-engaged mental health care in the era of climate change.

Multidisciplinary Team-Based Climate Care

Climate change affects mental health in multifaceted ways – from acute trauma after disasters to chronic anxiety about environmental decline. No single profession or sector has all the answers (1). Multidisciplinary teams are therefore essential in crafting effective interventions. This means bringing together family physicians, nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and public health experts, as well as environmental health specialists and community organizers. By pooling diverse expertise, care teams can address the physical, psychological, social, and environmental dimensions of climate-related health challenges holistically (2).

Crucially, collaborative teams often extend beyond the clinic. Working with local authorities and community groups ensures that clinical insights inform community planning (and vice versa) (2). For example, a primary care clinic might partner with municipal emergency planners to prepare for the mental health needs that arise during heat waves or wildfires. Likewise, mental health professionals may collaborate with climate scientists to stay up-to-date on emerging environmental stressors, which improves anticipatory guidance for patients (3). Such cross-sector alliances enrich the team’s understanding of how climate impacts are playing out in the local community and what resources can be mobilized in response. In short, climate-aware care thrives on connectedness: it “unifies multidisciplinary approaches, including climate science, psychiatry and psychology, to inform and shape public policy and action” (3) that protect mental health.

Within clinical settings, adopting a team-based care model means that no provider works in isolation on a patient’s climate-related distress. A patient reporting eco-anxiety and insomnia, for instance, might benefit from a physician ruling out medical issues, a counselor providing therapy for anxiety, and a community health worker connecting the patient to a local climate action group for social support. Regular team huddles or case conferences can help coordinate these efforts. This approach mirrors established collaborative care models in mental health, which have proven effective in primary care by sharing responsibility among providers and incorporating the patient’s social context into care plans. By engaging multiple disciplines and sectors, innovative solutions often emerge – such as “nature-based prescribing” (where a doctor and park program coordinator work together to prescribe time outdoors for stress reduction) or integrative support groups co-led by mental health professionals and climate advocates. These creative interventions are more feasible when a diverse team is actively communicating, ensuring that care for the patient is comprehensive and not limited to what any single provider could offer.

Integrating Community and “Natural Supports”

Healing from climate distress cannot happen solely in clinical offices. It requires tapping into the power of community and relationships. Many patients experience anxiety, grief, or hopelessness about climate change that is amplified by a sense of isolation (4). Community integration in care means helping patients connect with others – family, friends, peers, mentors, Elders, neighbors – who can offer understanding and solidarity. These informal networks are often termed “natural supports.” Natural supports are the personal associations and relationships developed in the community that provide emotional, social, and practical help in everyday life (5). They can include everything from a supportive grandparent or a faith group, to a weekly pick-up soccer game or gardening club where fellowship is found. Research shows that such informal give-and-take connections protect and promote positive mental health and well-being (5). In the context of climate change, providers should view natural supports as a key therapeutic resource, not an afterthought.

Applying a natural supports approach involves actively identifying and engaging these networks as part of a patient’s care plan. For example, a mental health clinician might ask a young adult patient who is overwhelmed by climate news about people in their life they trust to talk about these feelings. The clinician could encourage the patient to spend time with an outdoors club or a climate activism group where they can channel their concerns into collective action, rather than ruminating alone. Small interventions, like facilitating a family discussion about shared worries or connecting a patient to a community climate café, can reinforce the idea that they are not alone in facing climate anxiety (4). By leveraging existing community ties, care providers help patients build resilience in place. This also respects the patient’s cultural and social context. In Indigenous communities, for instance, land-based activities, story-telling with Elders, and community ceremonies are all forms of natural support that ground people during ecological change. Health providers should support these community traditions and strengths, rather than try to replace them with clinical interventions.

Importantly, integrating community support doesn’t mean professionals step back entirely; rather, they collaborate with community members as partners in care. This might include co-facilitating a support circle with a local leader or training peer supporters in basic coping skills and psychological first aid for climate-related stress. It also means healthcare organizations forming partnerships with grassroots and faith-based organizations, environmental groups, and local businesses to build community capacity for mental health support (1). For example, a public health unit could team up with a community center to create a “resilience hub” where people gather after extreme weather events to find social support, resources, and counseling. The underlying principle is that care extends beyond the clinic walls and into the fabric of the community.

Shifting from Individual Burden to Collective Resilience

Modern healthcare increasingly recognizes that well-being is a collective endeavor. This is especially true for the mental health impacts of a global crisis like climate change. Traditional advice to individuals – “try meditation,” “focus on what you can control” – has value for coping, but it can inadvertently place the onus solely on the person who is suffering. In the climate context, telling patients to simply be more resilient or to reduce their own carbon footprint may heighten feelings of guilt and inadequacy, because the problem is so much larger than any one person (6). Collaborative care reframes the solution as a shared project: the patient, their support network, health professionals, and the broader community all have roles in easing climate distress.

A growing body of evidence suggests that collective action and community engagement are powerful antidotes to climate-related anxiety and depression. A 2022 study led by the Yale School of Public Health found that among young adults, those who engaged in group activities to address climate change (such as advocacy or peer education) did not show the link between climate anxiety and depression that their non-engaged peers did (6). In other words, participation in collective efforts buffered them from depression, even as they felt climate anxiety. Simply performing solitary eco-friendly habits wasn’t enough – individual actions like recycling or turning off lights, while beneficial for the planet, did not confer the same mental health benefit because they felt insignificant in the face of a global threat (6). But coming together with others instilled hope, community connection, and social support, which helped combat feelings of hopelessness (6). These findings align with broader research that building a sense of community can reduce the adverse mental health impacts of climate change (7).

For care providers, these insights underscore the importance of de-emphasizing sole individual responsibility in our guidance for patients. Instead of framing a patient’s eco-distress as an individual problem to manage alone, providers can validate it as a collective concern and encourage shared solutions. Practically, this might mean organizing group therapy focused on climate emotions, or starting a community forum where people can voice climate-related fears and discuss action. It can also mean advocating at the organizational or policy level so that the systems patients live in provide more support – for example, schools incorporating climate anxiety discussions into their curriculum, or employers creating green teams and mental health resources for workers after climate disasters.

The concept of community resilience is useful here. A resilient community is one where people are connected, prepared, and able to help each other through crises (8). Strong social ties are a key component of such resilience (8). Healthcare providers can play a role in strengthening those social ties by facilitating community networking and empowering local leaders. One strategy is to identify protective factors already present in the community – for instance, an existing neighborhood volunteer network or a cultural practice that brings people together – and build on them (1). Perhaps a town has a tradition of communal meals or a robust faith community; these can be harnessed to organize climate forums, buddy systems for vulnerable residents during heat waves, or mutual aid funds after extreme weather. By mobilizing these collective resources, we reduce the pressure on any single patient to “handle” their climate angst alone and instead foster a shared resilience that benefits everyone.

Validating Climate Distress without Over-Medicalizing

As we adopt collaborative and community approaches, it is vital to maintain authentic, compassionate care in every interaction. Climate-related mental health issues often manifest as anxiety, grief, anger, or despair – emotions that are understandable responses to the unfolding climate crisis. An authoritative academic consensus has emerged that these feelings “should not be pathologised and are not a mental disorder”, but rather “a psychologically healthy response to the reality of climate change” (9). In practice, this means care providers should validate patients’ climate distress as real and rational. Authentic care involves listening deeply and responding with empathy and honesty, rather than immediately treating these emotions as symptoms to be medicated away. It “transcends mere service delivery, embodying an inviolable commitment to mutual well-being, compassion and generosity” (10). Providers can demonstrate authentic care by acknowledging their patients’ feelings as legitimate, sharing in their concern where appropriate, and even expressing their own humanity (for example, “Many of us, myself included, feel the weight of these issues – it’s okay to feel this way.”).

Avoiding over-medicalization is particularly important. While certain individuals may develop clinical anxiety or depression related to climate change (and should absolutely receive appropriate treatment), for many, climate distress is not a psychiatric pathology but a sign of their values and awareness. In these cases, the best interventions may be social or environmental rather than pharmaceutical. For instance, helping a patient join a community tree-planting initiative or an Indigenous land stewardship program can provide meaning and agency that ease despair in ways an anxiolytic might not. This aligns with a de-medicalized approach: using natural and community-based interventions as first-line supports, and reserving clinical treatments as adjuncts when needed. Techniques like mindfulness or cognitive-behavioral skills can be useful, but they should be offered in tandem with opportunities for the patient to connect, engage, and act. As one Canadian commentary notes, coping strategies that merely distract from the crisis have limits; ultimately, “the way forward is together” (4) – through connection, open discussion of feelings, and collective action.

Culturally safe care is another aspect of authenticity. Care providers must recognize how climate change differentially impacts communities (for example, Indigenous Peoples, whose lands and cultures are directly threatened, or low-income neighborhoods with fewer adaptive resources) and tailor their approach accordingly. In practice, this could mean incorporating traditional healing practices, addressing eco-grief in the context of cultural loss, or working alongside community healers. It also means being mindful not to override community coping mechanisms. External professionals responding to a climate-related disaster, for instance, should seek to support community resilience rather than supplant it. This might involve training local volunteers to provide peer support, or collaborating with a community’s existing wellness programs, so that when outside aid leaves, the community remains empowered and not dependent. Respecting local knowledge and capacity is key; often, communities have been coping with environmental change long before professionals arrived, and there is much to learn from their endurance and wisdom. Authentic care, therefore, is humble and partnership-oriented.