Photo of Interior Health healthcare facility in Interior BC.

Capacity Building

Interior Health Climate Resilience Leadership Training

A leadership development program that strengthens Interior Health’s ability to respond to climate impacts with clarity, compassion, and resilience, building not only operational readiness, but the human and organizational capacity required to care for communities in an era of accelerating change.

Building the capacity of healthcare leaders to navigate climate risk, complexity, and care.

Interior Health faces increasing climate-driven disruptions, from extreme heat and wildfire smoke to flooding and supply chain instability, layered on top of workforce shortages, burnout, and growing community vulnerability. Leaders are being asked to make high-stakes decisions under uncertainty, while supporting staff and patients through cascading stress and risk. Traditional emergency management training alone is not enough to prepare leaders for the human, ethical, and systemic dimensions of a climate-altered health system.

Profile

Client: Interior Health Authority (BC)

Practice Areas: Capacity Building, Strategy Design

Impact Domains: Sustainability, Emergency Management

Frameworks: Climate adaptation and mitigation science; Trauma-informed leadership; Futures and scenario planning; Care-based resilience

Work

  • Designed a modular leadership training program focused on climate resilience as a people, systems, and sensemaking challenge, not just an operational one

  • Integrated climate science with futures thinking to help leaders anticipate and prepare for compounding and cascading risks

  • Built trauma-informed and care-centred leadership practices to support staff wellbeing, psychological safety, and moral resilience during climate events

  • Created space for peer learning and reflection, strengthening leaders’ ability to navigate uncertainty, anxiety, and competing demands

  • Equipped leaders with practical tools for decision-making, communication, and adaptive capacity in the face of climate disruption