Looking After the People Who Look After Us

Last week, I was at my regular Queensland SES training.

Like many volunteers, I spend around two hours training each week, along with additional weekend exercises and other training activities. Over a year, that adds up to hundreds of hours learning, practising, refreshing and applying skills.

Sometimes I think about how much we expect an SES volunteer to know.

It’s not simply about responding when the text from the duty officer’s phone comes through. We need to know how to use multiple software applications, read maps to navigate to an incident and manage communications. We learn radio call signs and operational procedures. We practice how to safely anchor a static line and safety lines to inspect and possibly tarp a storm-damaged roof and how to reassure a homeowner who is standing underneath that roof watching water come through their ceiling.

We learn how to assess a ladder before someone climbs it and check that a harness and other equipment are safe before a team member heads onto a roof. We may be involved in a vertical rescue where someone is preparing to descend a rock wall or in a flood boat as part of a rescue team. We need to understand the equipment, the environment, the risks and the procedures.

There are many steps, many skills and many things to consider. We don’t learn them once and then assume we are competent forever. We train, practice, exercise, make mistakes in controlled environments, learn from more experienced people, debrief and come back and do it again.

Because when you’re standing in front of a damaged home, preparing to climb onto a roof or responding to a search and rescue operation, knowing about something isn’t enough.

You need capability.

It made me think about how differently we approach another area of human life: wellbeing.

We expect people to navigate incredibly complex human situations, often with very little preparation. A colleague who was once very engaged becomes withdrawn. Someone’s behaviour changes. A team member that is usually performing well starts making multiple mistakes and is finding decision-making difficult. A volunteer has been involved in a particularly confronting incident. Someone starts struggling with sleep, relationships or alcohol. Someone says something that makes us wonder whether they’re actually okay.

What do we do?

For many people, the honest answer is: I’m not sure.

We were never taught.

And when we are taught, it is often through a one-off training session. We attend, listen, perhaps participate in a few activities, and then return to our normal working lives. Months later, when a difficult situation arises, we may remember that we were once told something about mental health, but we don’t necessarily have the confidence or practical experience to know what to say or do. We’ve rarely been mentored and then continued to practice this skill set.

We don’t treat operational capability this way. Why would we treat human capability differently?

This is particularly important for first responders.

A new study from the University of New England has highlighted the psychological strain experienced by rural and regional first responders, including police, paramedics, SES and fire and rescue personnel. The research points to a combination of factors that can compound the impact of the work: exposure to traumatic situations, workforce shortages, high workloads, geographic isolation, small teams and limited access to specialised support.

One participant described the experience of working in a rural community as having a “burden of responsibility”, particularly when there may be few others available to share the load. The researchers also found that cultures which expect stoicism and celebrate the heroic ideal can contribute to psychological distress.

That last point is worth sitting with.

First responders are often praised for being resilient. We talk about courage, strength and getting the task done. Those qualities matter. But resilience should never become an expectation that people simply absorb whatever is placed in front of them without consequence.

There are long-held beliefs about feelings, mental health and “coping” that can be particularly difficult to shift in environments where being “strong” is valued.

Be strong.

Get on with it.

Don’t dwell on it.

Everyone has problems.

Talking about it won’t change anything.

These messages can be absorbed over many years. They can influence how we respond when we are struggling ourselves and how we respond when someone else is struggling.

Changing them requires more than awareness.

It requires learning, practice and conversation.

This is one of the reasons I believe we need to broaden the way we think about wellbeing.

At ASWA, we don’t see wellbeing as synonymous with mental health. Mental health is one dimension of wellbeing, alongside the many other factors that influence our capacity to function and thrive. Physical health, relationships, connection, purpose, environment, work, financial circumstances, recovery and the way we experience our everyday lives all interact.

But mental health has been underestimated, misunderstood and avoided for far too long. We are now seeing the consequences in individuals, families, workplaces and communities. There is strength in acknowledging where we can better. In fact, identifying what we can do better next time is a key step in every debrief for a first responder.

That doesn’t mean every wellbeing problem is a mental health problem, or that every organisation needs to become a mental health organisation. Quite the opposite.

It means we need to become better at understanding the whole person, while developing enough mental health literacy to recognise when this particular dimension of wellbeing needs attention.

For first responders, this matters enormously.

Their wellbeing doesn’t begin and end when they are tasked or deployed. It includes what happens between incidents: whether they are recovering properly, sleeping, maintaining relationships, feeling connected to their team and community, managing competing responsibilities and having somewhere to turn when an experience has affected them more deeply than they expected.

It also includes the organisational environment around them. How leaders respond. The capabilities of the leaders. What is normalised. Whether people feel safe to speak. Whether what they have to say will actually be respected and followed up. Whether workloads are sustainable. Whether volunteers feel that their time and contributions are valued. Whether there is genuine access to appropriate, relevant and timely support.

The UNE research is important because it doesn’t suggest that the answer is simply to make first responders more resilient. It points towards a broader response involving organisational culture, working conditions, psychologically safe environments and access to appropriate, tailored support.

That aligns strongly with the way I think about wellbeing.

We can give people individual tools and strategies, and we should. But we also need to look at the environment in which people are expected to use those tools in order to effectively minimise risk.

There is another reason I feel strongly about building this capability before it is needed.

As an SES volunteer, I don’t want to be learning how to conduct a safety check for the first time when my colleague is halfway up a ladder onto a two-storey roof. I don’t want to discover how a piece of equipment works when someone’s safety depends upon me knowing how to use it. I certainly don’t want my first experience of a rescue procedure to be during an actual rescue.

We prepare beforehand because the high-pressure moment is the wrong time to start learning.

The same principle applies to wellbeing.

We can teach people how to recognise changes in behaviour. We can teach them how to start a supportive conversation. We can help them understand the difference between listening and trying to fix. We can give leaders a clearer understanding of their role and their boundaries. We can help people recognise when a situation needs to be referred to someone with professional expertise.

And, importantly, we can practice.

That is where I see a role for ASWA Mental Health Fundamentals. It is a practical, facilitator-led program that gives organisations a starting point for developing shared understanding and confidence around mental health. It can be delivered virtually or face-to-face, which makes it particularly accessible for geographically dispersed teams, regional organisations, volunteer groups and emergency services.

But I don’t see it as the answer to wellbeing.

It is one part of a much bigger picture.

ASWA’s expertise is wellbeing. Our approach is whole-person and whole-organisation. Mental health is an important dimension of that picture—one that we can no longer afford to avoid—but it sits alongside the other factors that influence human capacity and sustainable performance.

And perhaps this is the conversation we need to have more often with our first responders.

We spend enormous amounts of time preparing them to look after us.

We train them to use the equipment. We teach them the procedures. We run exercises. We practise communications. We develop operational capability because we understand that preparation matters.

The people who respond to emergencies are human beings, though. They have families, relationships, histories, responsibilities and finite capacity. They can be physically exhausted, emotionally affected and mentally overwhelmed, just like anyone else.

Their uniforms don’t make them immune to being human.

So perhaps we need to think about wellbeing in the same way we think about operational readiness.

Not as something we pull out when there is a problem, but as something we build and strengthen before we need it.

Not as a one-off conversation, but as capability that is developed and reinforced over time.

Not as a sign that someone isn’t coping, but as another set of skills that helps people do what they have chosen to do safely and sustainably.

We prepare people to respond to physical emergencies. We should also prepare people to respond to human ones.

Because the people who look after us deserve to be looked after too.

Image credit: SES QLD https://www.ses.qld.gov.au/join-us