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This paper reviews what local governments in more than 50 cities are doing with regard to disaster risk reduction. It draws on the reports of their participation in the global Making Cities Resilient Campaign and its 10 "essential" components, and on interviews with city mayors or managers. These show how resilience to disasters is being conceived and addressed by local governments, especially with regard to changes in their institutional framework and engagement with communities and other stakeholders, also in mobilizing finance, undertaking multi-hazard risk assessments, upgrading informal settlements, adjusting urban planning and implementing building codes. The paper summarizes what city mayors or managers view as key milestones for building resilience, and further discusses their evaluation of the usefulness of the campaign to them. It also discusses how a local government-focused perspective on disaster risk reduction informs our understanding of resilience. This includes how development can contribute much to disaster risk reduction as well as a more tangible and operational understanding of resilience (resistance + coping capacity + recovery + adaptive capacity) that local governments can understand and act on.

Responding to climate change requires radical transformations in social, political, economic and social-ecological systems. Recent research has argued that individuals can drive transformations at scale through changes in beliefs and values that affect political action. We draw from sociological and psychological perspectives on mental health outcomes among survivors of violence and abuse, taking a gendered approach, to show how potential for individual transformation is differentially constructed through personal life trajectories and intersectional social relations. We also argue that being resilient and transforming is stressful and involves significant personal costs. In integrating this psychological perspective, we suggest a more equitable way to define the individual's role in, and their responsibility for, sustainable societal-scale shifts for climate change.

The launch of the £80m Preventative Technology Grant in 2006 has resulted in a considerable interest in telecare. Yet where in this emerging area should efforts be concentrated, and what lessons can be learnt from previous trials to aid future deployments? Based on practical experience and the work of the Housing & Telecare Learning & Improvement Networks at the Care Service Improvement Partnership (CSIP), Department of Health, this paper presents some of the common issues experienced and identified when implementing telecare. It makes a number of useful suggestions on how organisations working across housing, health and social care can make best use of telecare when planning, commissioning and delivering services.