Partnering with environmental NGOs, climate research labs, schools and educators, youth groups, conference organizers, governments, and corporate sustainability teams to mitigate the psychological impact of the climate crisis while promoting emotional resilience.
Refugia Consulting cultivates workforce resilience while addressing cycles of systemic burnout to protect your greatest asset - your people.
Environmental activists and sustainability professionals are deeply caring, motivated, and dedicated individuals. This makes for highly valuable and productive teams that may struggle with boundaries and benefit from additional support with emotional hygiene.
Narrative reframing, evidence-based psychoeducation, somatic embodiment practices, and simple workplace culture adjustments can take your team from surviving to thriving. Clients learn to hold the complexity of our current reality and the accompanying range of emotions using IFS strategies and dialectical techniques. We tap into the power of nervous system regulation to balance the natural activation our bodies experience in times of crisis.
The journey through the climate crisis is a marathon, not a sprint.
Let's navigate the way forward, together.
Speaking Engagements
Resilience Workshops
Executive Coaching
Freelance Communications
Staff Retreats
Inidivudal Support
Presentation topics may include eco-anxiety, climate grief, repairing our relationship with nature, sustainable climate action, responding to climate denial, or developing emotional resilience during an ongoing crisis.
Rachael Coccia, MA, LMHCA - Founder, lead Facilitator and Speaker for Refugia Consulting
Rachael is an environmental professional turned licensed counselor. She had a decade of experience supporting the environmental movement as a science communicator, activist, television host, and program manager. Professional highlights include Host and Associate Produce at Aqua Kids TV, Graduate Assistant at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, and Director of Youth Initiatives for World Oceans Day. Most recently she led the plastic pollution reduction efforts for The Surfrider Foundation HQ, including their national beach cleanup program. Her specialized approach to climate psychology draws from her background in existential psychology, ecopsychology, IFS, and grief counseling.
Rachael knows firsthand the daily stressors and pressures that come with working on environmental and climate solutions. Learn more in Bio.