Social Resilience Strategy

Cairns Regional Council is committed to building social resilience to ensure our community continues to thrive and recover during times of uncertainty.

Research shows that communities with high social resilience and social cohesion recover more quickly and effectively from challenges. As we continue to grow, we will face challenges like social isolation, natural disasters, rising cost of living and declining social inequity. To overcome these challenges, we need to continue to build social resilience to ensure Cairns continues to be a place where people feel connected, healthy and supported.

The Cairns Social Resilience Strategy 2026-2030 (the Strategy) provides a roadmap for Council to facilitate a coordinated and collective approach to building social resilience across our community.

Strategy focus areas

This Strategy outlines four key areas of focus for Council to collaboratively work towards. Each focus area identifies a range of opportunities to guide action planning over the next four years:

1. Local housing solutions: Local responses to housing and homelessness that support everyone having access to adequate, safe and secure housing.
2. Engaged and empowered young people: Making sure our young people are healthy, engaged and empowered to contribute to a socially resilient community.
3. Inclusive and welcoming communities: Creating a place where people feel connected to each other, to their neighbourhoods and have the opportunity to contribute to decisions that affect them.
4. Safe and respectful relationships: Supporting healthy relationships and access to networks and services that keep people safe.

The four-year roadmap will guide Council’s work with community organisations, service providers and government agencies to build a more connected, inclusive and resilient Cairns.

It also identifies opportunities to strengthen outcomes through advocacy, partnerships, service delivery, community engagement and funding initiatives.

An annual report card will track progress and identify future opportunities across the four focus areas.