Introduction
Climate activism can have deep impacts on both physical and mental health. Some of these are overwhelmingly positive, with participation in social movements fostering greater connection between people, as well as an increased sense of purpose and hope. However, the emotional weight of climate change and the physical and psychological toll of being an activist can also have substantial negative impacts. In some cases, these impacts can disproportionately affect activists who have pre-existing health conditions.
In light of this, there is a growing awareness of the urgent need to create activist spaces that are accessible, welcoming and provide material support for people with diverse health needs. But how can this actually be achieved?
In 2023 a group of researchers from a range of universities, health providers and climate advocacy organisations decided to investigate this question. Supported by the Sunrise Project, the team developed a set of questions which explored 29 individual climate activists’ physical and mental health experiences and how these may have been affected by their roles as activists.
Activists – who came from diverse geographic areas with a range of experiences in different types of climate activist groups – were also asked to identify ways the movement could improve support for activists with diverse health needs in the future.
In this article, we summarise the activists’ experiences, insights and recommendations that they shared in the interviews. Each of the recommendations below has been drawn from the interviews, and where relevant we’ve provided extra context or resources to assist you in implementing them. We hope that these insights will help climate activist groups embed accessibility and support tools into their practices, as well as benefit all climate activists seeking to build a better, healthier, climate safe world.
I really think that people who’ve experienced disability, chronic illness, any kinds of illnesses, often develop skills that you won’t have had if you haven’t been through these things. Skills around knowing limits, skills around caring. Just lots of other skills that are really useful and important. And when we valorise the activist who sleeps at work or never stops, it gives an implicit message to people that that’s how they should be. And if they can’t be like that then there’s something wrong with them. – Interview Participant
Tips
1. Offer material support
2. Provide a diversity of actions for people to take part in
3. Normalise people coming in and out of movements as their needs and circumstances change
4. Have designated welcoming and support roles in groups to make sure every new member feels welcomed
5. Provide plenty of opportunities for relationship building and connection
6. Set safe spaces for debriefs after actions: share what worked and what didn’t and have clear grievance and conflict resolution processes
7. Set clear expectations around the work and experiment with different ways of working
8. Don’t let urgency get in the way of building strong, safe, supportive teams for everyone
9. Support each other to spot the early warning signs of burnout
10. Be willing to cede power
1. Offer material support
If the climate movement wants to improve experiences for people with diverse health needs, the first step is to offer real material support. Without these things, participation for some activists is simply impossible. Interview participants named a few core examples, although this list is by no means exhaustive:
- Have Auslan interpreters at events and activities. Ensure captions are available for virtual meetings.
- Make sure events, meetings and campaign spaces are fully accessible to activists with different mobility needs. Check-in and ask people what they need.
- Offer carpooling.
- Be mindful of dietary requirements. Be specific and try asking people with different dietary requirements what they normally eat for breakfast/lunch/dinner.
- Provide real time, space and budget for different kinds of support.
- Provide reimbursements for expenses where possible, and if this is not possible, ensure communications about expenses are clear and communicated before they are incurred. Be mindful that different activists have different financial pressures.
- For volunteer-only groups, reach out to larger organisations that may be able to offer accessibility support services free of charge, and see whether there are networks or alliances you could join that would provide accessibility guidance and mentoring.
- For paid staff members, provide adequate leave entitlements for medical and health leave.
For more tips, have a look at this webinar on Making Advocacy Accessible or our Making Advocacy Accessible collection.
2. Provide a diversity of actions for people to take part in
There’s lots of different ways people can be involved. And I think it’s just somehow messaging that, and empowering people to do what they can. And not feel like, because they’re not pounding the streets, that they’re not doing something or that they don’t have value. – Interview Participant
There are countless ways to be an activist, and interview participants felt that it was important to change our image of the “super activist”, who stands at the frontlines of protests and never stops or takes a break. Whether it’s through letter writing, street protests, community support roles, online activism, or art, every contribution is valuable.
Providing a range of different options for people to take part in can help to create a welcoming environment for people with diverse needs. This includes diversity in activities and roles, but also in how groups communicate. For example, participants recommended providing offline as well as online communication options for people who may not have strong digital literacy. Importantly, one interview participant emphasised that people with diverse health needs have developed valuable skills, from knowing their limits to caring for others, and these skills help make the climate movement stronger.
One way to ensure that your group offers a range of different ways to do activism is to have a pre-designed list of tasks and activities at each stage on the ‘ladder of engagement’. This lists all the different roles and tasks that a group does, and can include tasks such as doing the social media communication, convening meetings or supporting the group financially.
3. Normalise people coming in and out of movements as their needs and circumstances change
People go through these journeys and at times they’re going to be feeling ill health, and at times they’re going to be feeling better. And knowing whether it’s in paid employment or not that that journey of coming in and out is fine. – Interview Participant
To grow the movement we need to accept that different people have different levels of capacity and make sure everyone feels respected and included. Interview participants shared several factors that influenced their capacity, including mental health, chronic and acute illnesses, ageing, childcare and neurodiversity. Giving activists the space to move in and out as their capacity changes is important. But interview participants also said it’s important not to let group members fall away without checking in to make sure they’re okay.
Having designated roles for this support work can be helpful, and a range of resources on the Commons Library are available to help with this. For example, a ladder of engagement task list (see Tip #2 above) can also help people who are coming in and out of groups find the right sort of role or task that suits their needs the best.. Knowing what tasks are available and needed can help people ease back into group tasks after time away, as well as help the group identify how tasks can be supported for people with different accessibility needs.
4. Have designated welcoming and support roles in groups to make sure every new member feels welcomed
I think welcoming is the most important thing of all. Back on the Franklin where we had hundreds of people coming and going… If someone grabbed you said, ‘hi, welcome. Here’s a cup of tea’ or, you know, ‘put your tent over there’, it made such a difference. I think the modern movements are much less welcoming than we used to be. They don’t see that role. It’s not in the list of roles, there’s police liaison, media liaison and comms and this and that. But as far as welcoming and welfare, I think we can do much, much better. And all it needs is just someone who’s willing to look you in the eye and say ‘hi, welcome’. I’ve had people tell me that they’ve gone to a meeting and basically left and never gone back because they were treated dreadfully or ignored. It does take an effort, and people need to make that effort, I think. – Interview Participant
Providing a safe and welcoming environment for new members takes intentional work, and can often be forgotten in the rush of campaign planning. Some of the interview participants described negative experiences where they didn’t feel welcomed or supported in activist groups, particularly when navigating diverse health needs. Having dedicated roles in your group for welcoming new members means that these tasks can be prioritised and every new member can be introduced to the group or campaign with care. This also provides space for getting to know new members and the skills they bring to the group, while making sure any accommodations they might need to participate are implemented. These “welcoming” roles can be shared or rotating roles, so that relational care work isn’t left to one person.
In addition to welcoming new members, one interviewee talked about having a team of welfare support people at actions, this included general support roles, such as a “tea fairy” offering cups of tea to participants, but also trained professionals, such as social workers. This team can support activists in real-time, with professionals available if anyone becomes distressed during an action.
Groups should also ensure that they know how to support members in accessing trained, professional assistance should it be needed. For example, Psychology for a Safe Climate offers workshops and a directory of climate aware practitioners for people who are distressed by the climate emergency.
5. Provide plenty of opportunities for relationship building and connection
Without just being part of a huge auditorium full of people who are all excited about saving the world but there’s no actual one-to-one connection, because that’s the first step. And then when that happens then there’ll be this sense of people feeling that they might at least be able to trust one other person to be able to say, ‘oh, look, I couldn’t come to the rally on Saturday because my recurrent back problems flared up’ or ‘my beloved dog got sick’ or something like that. Rather than people just not show up and nobody knows why. And then the spinoff from that if something terrible happens, if the person’s back doesn’t improve, or their dog doesn’t recover, nobody checks in with them and says, ‘oh hey, we missed you at such and such on Saturday, you know, how’s Genevieve, the German Shepherd, is it going ok?’ – Interview Participant
A core part of working in groups is building trust, but building trust takes time. It’s important that there are plenty of opportunities for members to connect and get to know each other during meetings and events; a tip mentioned by many interview participants. In practice, this might mean breaking into smaller groups for activities, setting aside some time for meaningful team-building, or even holding regular dedicated meetings and events for connection, nurturing and collective care.
Interview participants emphasised that having times dedicated to “whinging” and sharing emotions, without the need to provide solutions, can be restorative. It’s easier for group members to communicate their needs in a trusting environment where they feel respected and acknowledged. One way to share the responsibility of this task is to assign relationship building and connection tasks to a specific person or subgroup. They could then organise and run relationship building activities, as well as review gathering agendas to ensure that time is set aside to include this important work.
6. Set safe spaces for debriefs after actions: share what worked and what didn’t and have clear grievance and conflict resolution processes
So debriefing is really important. I think everyone that ever does frontline action should debrief as soon as possible afterwards. Preferably with a professional person there on the spot, but if not, at least with a decent facilitator. – Interview Participant
Before rushing on to the next action or campaign, providing members with an opportunity to debrief and reflect can help to create strong, resilient groups. Either a separate gathering or specific time in a gathering could be set aside to celebrate and congratulate each on what worked well and give everyone space to acknowledge their accomplishments. Learnings could be written up to help inform future campaigns and activities.
As well as sharing highlights and experiences it’s also important to provide space for any critical feedback and to learn from errors or misjudgements. Having clear processes and guidelines for grievances, conflict resolution and negative feedback will mean that groups are able to work through problems constructively and supportively (find a range of resources for conflict resolution in our Working in Groups topic overview).
This will also mean that members with diverse health needs have an opportunity to raise any issues that might have come up. One interview participant emphasised that groups that assume they don’t need conflict resolution processes are often the ones most at risk of toxic dynamics between members. Conflict is a natural part of working in diverse groups, so it’s better to plan for it intentionally rather than just reacting to it when it comes up.
7. Set clear expectations around the work and experiment with different ways of working
I think there needs to be very early statements or a recognition that this work is challenging, and that it will impact your health. – Interview Participant
Multiple interview participants pointed to times where it was not clearly communicated to them what certain tasks or activities would involve. This created difficult situations for them when they weren’t able to complete particular tasks assigned to them, or they felt uncomfortable voicing their concerns. When assigning tasks and sharing workloads it’s important to set clear expectations about what the work will involve, and check-in regularly to make sure everyone is comfortable with their roles. Similarly, it’s important to state clearly what accessibility features are available at meetings and events. That way participants will know what to expect when they show up. Regular check-ins about workloads and what accessibility and inclusion measures can be added can help boost participation by those with diverse health and inclusion needs.
For volunteer teams with little resources and time, a specific person could be given the role of checking in with others to see whether they are comfortable with their tasks, or need any support. If there are no volunteers or resources available to take on this role, then creating a set of shared group norms or a collective statement on how you’re going to approach activism work can be very helpful. This statement or set of norms can include how you will share the load, your group values, as well as a list of current and future accessibility needs.
Ensure that everyone is responsible for checking in with others, and that no one person is responsible for supporting everyone else. Review the statement or norms regularly to make sure they’re still serving everyone’s needs As highlighted by some interview participants, knowing that people in the group care about you and your needs is a powerful way to build a strong and caring group culture that will support activists in their efforts over the long term.
When taking the time to set norms around your activism work, experiment with ways of working that make the long term commitment of many campaigns more sustainable. For example, big campaigns trying to achieve huge goals (like stopping climate change) could be broken up into shorter sprints with clear, achievable goals. As one interview participant mentioned, each sprint could end with a celebration or social gathering to reflect on experiences and share stories, which then helps build friendships within the team..
8. Don’t let urgency get in the way of building strong, safe, supportive teams for everyone
This urgency narrative only ever blocks us from creating a space that has better outcomes for everyone, rather than just a select group of people. – Interview Participant
Climate change is an urgent crisis, and it can be easy for climate activists to get swept up in the sense of emergency and prioritise taking action over everything else. But responding to this crisis requires resilience, which can only come from safe, nurturing communities. As a number of interview participants mentioned, it’s never a waste of time to invest care into each other. Even simply setting aside a moment at the start of every meeting to acknowledge the emotional toll of climate activism, and provide a moment for grounding or reflection can be valuable. This can be done through asking check-in and out questions in the first and last 5 minutes of each gathering.
These questions provide opportunities for everybody to speak during a gathering, and can also help build friendship and camaraderie amongst the team. We have some great tips for facilitating meetings and running better activist meetings in the Library, or have a look through this in-depth guide called Facilitation tools for meetings and workshops from Seeds for Change, with tips on running check-in and check-out sessions.
9. Support each other to spot the early warning signs of burnout
I think senior leaders need to become very serious about understanding burnout… I want senior leaders to understand all of this new research about the limits to the human body, we do have limits. What stress does to people, and also what stress does to relationships. You can’t have good relationships when you’re constantly stressed, and also what it does to the quality of work, because stress makes you very focused and single minded, which is very useful when you need to get something done, but it’s not useful when you’re always in that mindset. – Interview Participant
Many interview participants talked about burnout; either seeing it happen to others or experiencing it themselves. It can be debilitating and devastating, but there are ways to avoid it. Some participants talked about making sure that your group talks about burnout regularly, as well as ensuring that everyone knows the early warning signs. These warning signs will be different for everyone but can include loss of sleep, irritability, illness, or depression. Some participants recommended making acknowledgements about burnout and diverse health needs a regular part of meetings (i.e. as a standing agenda item), so all group members know what support is available and how to reach out if they’re struggling.
Equitable sharing of tasks was highlighted by a number of interview participants as critical to supporting their activism over time. One way of ensuring that tasks are shared fairly was to verbalise and specifically discuss task load sharing in meetings. For example, one participant suggested that when reviewing action items at the end of meetings, a group process could be to work together to check the balance of tasks allocated across group members. This process could include making sure everyone is comfortable with the work balance. If one person is taking on most of the work, a check-in could be undertaken to see if anything can be deprioritised or reallocated.
If your group has created a set of shared group norms (see Tip #7 above), time could be set aside to go through tasks periodically, check that no one person is carrying too much of the load and develop methods to share and support work loads in the future.
10. Be willing to cede power
I think we need more disabled folks in positions… more people with health issues in positions of power in this space. And it’s also not good enough for it to just be like carers of disabled people, I think people with disabilities need their own site. And we’ve talked a lot about diversifying climate when we talk about this… but people are unwilling to cede power. – Interview Participant
Finally, if we want to create a climate movement that is welcoming and open to everyone, we need a diverse group of people in leadership positions. One interview participant said that those in leadership positions need to be willing to cede power to others to allow diverse voices to be heard. This could be achieved by making sure that people from diverse backgrounds and with different lived experience have specific roles in leadership or volunteer teams.
However, many participants also noted there are material barriers that need to be addressed first. Participants shared that there were real barriers to leadership positions for people with mental and physical health conditions, such as impossibly high expectations, accessibility barriers, unsustainable workloads, and expectations of being switched-on 24/7. In this way, inaccessible and unsupportive work cultures are directly excluding activists with diverse health needs from moving into leadership roles. This can have a bigger impact on women, gender-diverse activists and people of colour within the movement, who face greater consequences for speaking out against these norms.
Understanding a social model of disability can help unpack biases towards certain ways of working, but it’s clear from these interviews that more needs to be done within the climate movement to improve cultural norms, and make material changes so that leadership roles are accessible for activists with diverse health needs.
Explore Further
- Read other articles based on this research: Health and Climate Activism; Climate Activism Coping Strategies; The Impact of Climate Activism on Health: Exploring Positive and Negative Effects
- If you want more information and resources to cope with climate anxiety and grief, have a look through our collection of Resources to Cope with Climate Anxiety and Grief.
- For more general resources on activist burnout and building healthy group cultures have a look through our Wellbeing topic area.
- For resources on accessibility in campaigning and advocacy check out our Making Advocacy Accessible collection.
- Want more climate activism content? Try our Climate Activism topic overview.