The impacts of climate change on human health and community welfare are becoming increasingly well understood, and it is widely acknowledged that climate change will exacerbate existing social and economic disadvantage among vulnerable populations. Far less is known, however, about the impacts that climate change will have on the vital primary health care and community services that vulnerable populations rely on. In particular, the adaptation needs and constraints of community service organisations have not been explored extensively.

In this paper we summarise findings from a recently completed 15-month research project conducted in Victoria, Australia. The project explored mechanisms to increase the adaptive capacity of community sector organisations to continue operation and service delivery under the impacts of climate change. Using a mix of qualitative and action-orientated research methods, we studied community service and primary health care organisations to ascertain the extent to which organisations and their clients perceived to be affected by climate change impacts; if and how they were learning to respond to such impacts; and if they had made progress with proactive climate change adaptation planning. The research findings suggest that community service and primary health care organisations have a crucial role to play in adaptation as climate change impacts become more frequent and more intense, affecting increasingly large urban population groups across Australia. We propose a model for engaging community service organisations in adaptation that can increase the adaptive capacity of these organisations and, by extension, of disadvantaged populations receiving primary health care, social and community services.