This paper outlines a place-based approach to enabling climate adaptation and resilience across community service organisations (CSOs) and local governments in Melbourne particularly in areas experiencing socio-ecological disadvantage. We present lessons from research with CSOs conducted throughout 2020, reinforced by findings from a series of workshops with CSOs and local governments in 2021, led by Jesuit Social Services (Centre for Just Places). The process of engaging CSOs together with local governments creates opportunities for relationship building, learning and collaboration and bridges siloed policy and practice domains around health, social services, emergency management and climate adaptation planning. This we argue, opens up the ‘interstitial’ spaces required to enact climate justice in practice, through focusing attention on both the contextual and systemic drivers of vulnerability in place.