Mental Health Is Climate Infrastructure: Building Support Before Disaster Strikes
About the Session
Climate shocks do not only damage homes, livelihoods, and physical infrastructure. They affect how people cope, connect, recover, and imagine their futures.
Extreme heat, floods, fires, displacement, livelihood loss, and uncertainty can all place significant pressure on mental health. Young people are navigating the psychological weight of an increasingly unstable climate, while communities affected by disasters may face trauma and prolonged stress long after the immediate emergency has passed.
Yet mental health support is often treated as something to assemble after disaster strikes.
What would change if mental health and social infrastructure were built into climate preparedness from the beginning? This session will explore how communities can strengthen the relationships, local capacity, services, and support systems that help people withstand climate shocks before, during, and after they happen.
The focus will be on locally led and sustainable approaches that strengthen community wellbeing over time, rather than temporary interventions that disappear when emergency funding does.
Discussion Group Leaders
Ash Rogers is Co-CEO at Lwala Community Alliance, advancing locally led health systems by shifting power and resources toward community leaders.
Celina de Sola is President and Co-founder at Glasswing International, advancing community-led solutions that strengthen education, health, and opportunities across Latin America, the Caribbean, and New York City.
Manasi Kumar is Professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, advancing mental health policy, practice, and research to address disparities and improve equitable access to care.
Pavel Reppo is Executive Director at Finemind, expanding access to mental health care by embedding services within public health systems in Uganda.
Rebecca Benghiat is Head of Impact at The Inner Foundation, advancing investment, philanthropy, and ecosystem building to strengthen the mental health of emerging adults worldwide.
What to Expect
A practical conversation connecting climate resilience with mental health and community wellbeing. Participants will explore what preventative mental health infrastructure can look like, how local organizations and communities can lead it, and what particular support young people may need in the face of climate uncertainty.
The discussion will move beyond responding to trauma toward designing systems that help people and communities prepare, adapt, and recover.
Who This Is For
This session is for climate and adaptation practitioners, mental health professionals, youth organizations, community leaders, funders, humanitarian organizations, policymakers, and others interested in strengthening the human and social dimensions of climate resilience.
What You Will Get Out of It
A framework for understanding mental health as part of climate resilience
Approaches to building support before climate shocks occur
Perspectives on the mental health impacts of climate change on young people and communities
Lessons from locally led and sustainable models of mental wellbeing
Ideas for integrating mental health and social infrastructure into climate adaptation and preparedness