Episode 316: Why Mental Health Conversations Matter in the Fire Service with Max Cottingham

Episode notes

It’s okay to not be okay. The question is, who notices?

Hello Smart Firefighting Community!

Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy.

Recorded live at the Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE) 2025 Conference alongside the AFAC, WAFA, and Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience Conference in Perth, Australia.

In this episode, Maxwell Cottingham of Fire and Rescue New South Wales shares how his department is building a culture where firefighters feel supported, seen, and safe to speak up. From peer support programs to chaplaincy and professional services, the structure is there, but the real shift is happening at the human level.

Max explains why most firefighters do not turn to formal resources first. They turn to each other. That reality is reshaping how departments think about mental health support, placing new focus on the people who receive those first conversations.

This discussion explores the continuum of mental health, the weight of self stigma, and the importance of early care before challenges grow into something more serious. Max also breaks down a simple but powerful framework for checking in, listening without judgment, and staying connected over time.

In sum, this episode is about culture, trust, and the responsibility firefighters carry not just for their communities, but for each other.

So take a listen to hear what he has to share.

Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources.

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Chapters

1. 0:00 Intro, live from Perth
2. 1:49 The mental health roadshow
3. 7:42 Chaplains and peer support
4. 11:36 Being open and vulnerable
5. 15:14 Max's role in the fire service
6. 17:49 Footy and balance
7. 20:08 Words to live by

Questions answered in this episode

What services does Fire and Rescue New South Wales offer for mental health support?

Max Cottingham says the department offers a range of services from peer support officers, who are firefighters and administrative staff providing informal social care, up to employed psychologists, wellbeing officers, chaplains, and nutritional advice. They work from the ground up, supporting everything from minor struggles to more advanced psychology sessions within Australia's Medicare mental health care plan framework.

Hear it at 1:49

What is the biggest barrier to firefighters seeking mental health help in Australia?

According to Max Cottingham, research by beyondblue called Answer the Call found that self-stigma is the biggest barrier. Most firefighters believe they are a burden if they bring up mental health problems, yet 98% of firefighters say it would be no burden if someone came to them with a mental health concern.

Hear it at 7:42

What is the R U OK framework that Fire and Rescue New South Wales uses?

Max Cottingham explains that R U OK is an Australian harm prevention charity founded by Gavin Larkin after he was impacted by suicide. The framework has four steps: ask how someone is doing in a meaningful way, listen without judgment, encourage action by letting them be the master of their own design and journey, and check in regularly because the more frequently someone is meaningfully connected with, the better off they feel.

Hear it at 7:42

Who are the chaplains in Fire and Rescue New South Wales?

Max Cottingham says the department has three full-time chaplains, and all are trained operational firefighters. The senior chaplain is a captain at Glenbrook, and the other two are firefighters at Blacktown and Camden fire stations, which helps them connect with staff. They also have a network of associate chaplains from different denominations.

Hear it at 1:49

What does Max Cottingham say about maintaining fitness and training in the fire service?

He was taught early on that you are only as good as your last job, and that depends on training in three areas: fitness in the gym, education and theoretical knowledge in the computer room, and skills by drilling in the yard. He says physical fitness is necessary to do the job, no matter what people might like to think.

Hear it at 20:08

Transcript

Machine transcript of the published audio. Names may be misspelled and some sections are missing.

Ep 316 transcript

Why Mental Health Conversations Matter in the Fire Service with Max Cottingham

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Max Cottingham

Source: Whisper medium.en machine transcription of the published Podbean audio (no original transcript found in Drive), lightly cleaned. Speakers were separated by voice clustering and then checked and assigned by hand at every speaker change. Gaps where the model returned no usable text are marked [inaudible m:ss].

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Welcome to our podcast mini-series, recorded live at the Fire Engineers 2025 conference in Perth, Australia, alongside the AFAC, WofA, and the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience Conferences. With over 28 conversations with Fire Chiefs, engineers, researchers, and innovators, we explored how the fire and emergency community is adapting to a rapidly changing world. From cloud-resilience and community-led adaption to the rise of new technologies like satellites, AI, and simple tools designed for the field to the importance of mental health, diversity, and global collaboration. These episodes highlight the shared challenges and inspiring solutions shaping the future of safety. Enjoy. All right, fortunate to be sitting alongside Maxwell Cunningham with Fire and Rescue New South Wales. What's going on, Max?

[0:53] Max Cottingham: Hey, Kevin. And after today, we're jumping on a plane to Adelaide and joining them on their roadshow tour, heading [inaudible 1:09] If you go to New Zealand, if you live in Sydney, and if you live over here in Perth, it's easier and quicker and cheaper

[1:39] Kevin Sofen: to zip over to Bali. So you're going on this road show and you've been a participant in the Institute of Fire Engineers conversation. What are you leading? What are you talking about?

[1:49] Max Cottingham: talk about mental health and emergency services, particularly- in our fire services fire services in Australia in Australia I've undertaken now I'm really proud to be proud to be part of my fire service and it was only last week fire and rescue NSW were finalist in a biannual award, where they are, [inaudible 2:25] The mental health, like our physical health, is a continuum of where we sit. You know, I wake up one day and have a niggle in my neck and I might just be a bit off that day and similarly I can wake up and feel a bit down and out. I haven't sleep well, I've been on shift, been a few things that have been really getting to me. There's that continuum and niggle where sometimes in our mental health everything's sweet, we're cruising, you're sleeping eight hours a day and life's good and you're in the gym it's wonderful where sometimes it's not and you know I try to I guess translate that to because mental health isn't always something that's seen. We go for a big sprint after six years not running and we strain our hamstring. Well you don't need to see an orthopedic surgeon about that you kind of just need rest and care and support, injury will heal. It's just not that bad it's just a little niggle but if you don't rest it, care for it and support that injury and you keep sprinting and running and you tear that hamstring off the bone, well then you're probably gonna want to see a surgeon and it gets really bad, just like our mental health. We're not necessarily to go and start seeing psychologists the moment we feel off, but we do need care and nurturement around supporting that vulnerability and that time where we're feeling a bit off and to answer your question, where it goes support counseling, all the way through to nutritional advice to firefighters who might be struggling with. And then from there are more advanced psychology sessions working within our Medicare framework of mental health care plans and we have officers. So we work from the ground up of that pyramid from that informal support and social care which is our peer support officers which are firefighters and administrative staff within Fire and Rescue, we've got some incredible administrative staff that work in our head office, that are peer support officers, we've got firefighters that are peer support officers, and they provide that social care, that informal care, and then all the way up to the psychologists employed by Fire and Rescue NSW, the wellbeing officers and the wellbeing team, and a lot of other fire services have similar approaches and something I feel what I want to services, is that all of these things we've targeted and I missed the biggest one, not the biggest one, but one that is hugely important in my opinion, which is chaplaincy. And our chaplains in Fire and Rescue New South Wales, we have three full-time chaplains and all of our chaplains are trained and operational firefighters. So, our senior chaplain is the captain at Glenbrook, our two other chaplains at Blacktown and Camden Fire Station as firefighters and chaplains. And so they really connect with our staff. But all of these services, they're targeted at the help seeker. So the help seeker benefits from all of these things. And I guess where we go from here is that the help seeker has all these options. But research in Australia that has done was done by beyondblue. And it's called answer the call and the answer the call through fire rescue services in Australia in their data showed that the majority of firefighters won't go to a professional service. First up, on the tour, is how do we talk to the help giver? That firefighter and that station officer might even be a senior, a senior officer. How do we talk to them to empower them and give them the confidence to have what could be a really difficult conversation?

[7:31] Kevin Sofen: And not make it feel weird or uncomfortable or demonizing in any capacity. and it's encouraging to hear that there's now, you said three chaplains within NSW?

[7:42] Max Cottingham: Yeah, so well, we have more than that. We only have three on-staff chaplains, But we have a network of associate chaplains as well. We have a network of associates, denominational religion as well. And the beauty of our chaplains and what they do is, I remember sitting down with Jason Goodhart, who's our senior chaplain, and we were talking about barriers to accessing mental health. And he came up and he said, sometimes religion can be a barrier for people that are not religious or have a different denomination. And I said, how do you break the barriers? And he said, well, people come to me and say, I'm not, I'm not really religious. He goes, well, that's cool. Neither am I. And as much as he has his faith, he's taught me a lot as well. It doesn't really matter where you are and what journey you're on when you talking about mental health, you talk about the relationship with that person and you say it's demonizing and that there is that chat. And beyond the answer the call survey also brought out this really interesting sign of the times around stigma for us in Australian mental health. at least as accurate when the data was released that self-stigma is the biggest part of stigma at the moment. It shows that most firefighters will have a level of stigma or believe that they're a burden to people if they bring up their mental health problems. The majority of firefighters believe that. However, when you look at the numbers in crunch, the numbers 98% of firefighters said that if someone came to me with a mental health concern, it would have no burden on me. So the stigma is less so, well I guess in recent times the stigma has moved from the stigma of having mental health conditions and people reflecting poorly on you for having. A mental health condition, at that time, to its transition to most people 98%, it's no burden to have that conversation. It's a self stigma and here in Australia there's a wonderful group called R U OK? and they're a charity, a harm prevention charity, and it was founded by a gentleman by the name of Gavin Larkin. And Gavin Larkin was impacted by suicide, and he wanted to have an ability and a way to generate conversation to prevent these things from happening again. R U OK? grew from that moment and the idea was in the time it takes to have a cup of tea you can have a conversation and change your life and so any day now we're trying to any day ask R U OK? And so we're using a framework from R U OK? to empower those people and it's a really simple framework. We ask how you're doing. We ask how you're doing in a meaningful way, you know, in a setting that is comfortable for everybody and we ask, we check in, we say, Hey, what's going on? The next step to that is to listen. We just listen without judgment. We're not here on a solutions-based task force. We don't want any solutions. We want to listen. We want to ask them, are you okay? We want to listen to what they've got to say. And then we, if appropriate, we encourage action. Sounds like you're doing it tough. How do we encourage you to be the master of your own design and this journey of mental health? You know, we're not here to take over. And then from the encouragement of action, we check in, we make sure we check back in with that person and we're asking, are they okay regularly? Where the more frequently someone is meaningfully connected with. The better off they feel and the more successful their journey is. And so that's part of the tool that we're using, the framework from R U OK? is that charity is specifically talking to the help-giver. And that's a part in emergency services mental health that we're missing. We've got all these services that we hammer to the help seeker, and it is an incredible thing we do. But there's that little chunk of what can we do better? Well, we could talk to the person that's gonna be the help-giver.

[11:36] Kevin Sofen: Well said and beautifully said, Max. And one thing that you mentioned earlier that caught my attention, and I think we as humans naturally feel this, is just an evolution. I'm not going to lie, I like to think I'm pretty optimistic, happy person. I'm, I'm a very metaphorically rich person in the sense that I have a healthy baby. I have a beautiful wife. I have the most incredible dog. I live a great life in Chicago and I'm very fortunate and blessed. But there are some days and mornings where I wake up where it's like, not that I'm necessarily feeling off, but it's like, you know, minds running, focus on this, focus on that, but I have worked on tools in best practices. We were working with my therapist about labeling thoughts, being proactive in terms of identifying ways that, you know, what is really going on, you know, that we all have our own, everyone's fighting some battle we don't know anything about, be kind always, my favorite quotes, but it's just this dynamic of like, it's okay to not always be okay. And I think that's a big point, I'm curious in your thoughts on that and knowing that like just like our physical health and you know sometimes we gain weight sometimes we lose weight sometimes we get a little muscle. I've kind of grown to believe that moderation is usually the best form on discretion in most things in our life whether that's with eating, drinking, drugs whatever, moderation is usually the best but this dynamic of mental health being this sometimes an evolution and even day to day, but just wanting to provide the best forums and platforms for individuals, for family men, family women, everyone. What are your thoughts on my little, my little rant right there in terms of kind of, again, how that applies to the work that you're continuing to spearhead?

[13:19] Max Cottingham: I love it. And I love you at the comfort to be open and vulnerable here with us because, you know, as men, we don't often say in Australia, we call a psychologist, a therapist, a counsellor, interchangeable term, as men, you don't often hear as men, we go, yeah, you know, I also have a therapist and I go and see my therapist and I see my therapist when I'm good and when I'm not good. And it is about that tools. And I think taking what you've got, having the five month old, you're up, you're down, you're traveling, you're here in Australia, it is moderation. You know, when you get home, how do you moderate and have a bit of time, but also pick up the mental load of the household because you're doing a hundred percent of the mental load of your household now. And we see this in shift workers where they're away from the home for a period of time, be it deployed, be it on shift. And it is those tools and using those tools, whether you label the thoughts or whether you work through grounding and being present and feeling the earth and hearing a sound, finding the tools that work for you. And [inaudible 14:21] That's sort of the space that I think is really important where you acknowledge that, yeah, like there are ebbs and flows and times where I'm not okay and it's perfectly okay to not be okay. And having that conversation, either man to man or with your partner or with your crew, sharing is at times a really good and really positive thing to do.

[15:14] Kevin Sofen: Within your role that you've continued to carve for yourself within the fire service and your role at NSW, What gives you hope and excitement about where the fire service is at in regards to creating space for mental health in terms of using this as an opportunity to continue to move the fire service forward? But ultimately what gives you hope and optimism and excitement for the fire service, whether that's just within Australia or the particularly the global fire service?

[15:43] Max Cottingham: I'll throw a wide net [inaudible 15:47] for firefighters that live in treatment centres. The recognition of these things, seeing even through the training. Back in Australia we were a relatively small country with a relatively We have longer summers, hotter summers. And what. Gives me hope is I guess the privilege I have of the people I work with, you know, and I've had a blessed experience in starting as a junior firefighter. We're level one firefighter and joining our mental health and peer support team and being mentored by some of these guys and girls that have been in the space much longer than me. There's a wonderful project coordinator, Chrissy Strickland at Fire and Rescue in New South Wales and she's mentored and helped guide me in relationship building and caring for people within our service. Mark was our wellbeing coordinator at one point and he has a very different approach and it's incredible and it's just as good, but it's different. And so you take these bits from these people, John McGarvey's another guy. And then you've got Kate Everett, who's our psychologist at the moment, Mick Johnson, and then you've also got people along the way that you work with peers and Sammy Monaghan, there's enough names that you sit there and you have conversation with people, and all these people care enough not just to help others, but they care enough to give you their time to teach you the little bits. And that's what gives me hope. These people give their time to look after other firefighters and beyond, but they also give you their time to trust a little bit of their knowledge and how they do things to help people with you. That's the hope. That's what gives me

[17:49] Kevin Sofen: It's brilliant, Max. I'm looking forward to hearing about some of the feedback from the roadshow that's going on and the. Because you continue to bounce this ball. I'm actually speaking of bouncing the ball. I've quickly become an AFL fan in the past couple weeks, the past week or so. What teams did you pick? You know, it was kind of, I picked it purely because I liked it to jersey, but I picked the Bulldogs even though they got eliminated.

[18:15] Max Cottingham: That's tough.

[18:16] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, but I'm more excited, I enjoyed watching it. Who's your team of choice?

[18:21] Max Cottingham: Look, local, Sydney Swans, the old South Melbourne football club.

[18:24] Kevin Sofen: Are they in the final eight?

[18:26] Max Cottingham: I wouldn't imagine so this year. I don't think they would have picked that up, but look, they have had a few wins over the past few years, and they do us proud. They train hard, they play hard, and it's an incredible sport to play.

[18:37] Kevin Sofen: It is, and, you know, again, the analogy of balance of balance of balance is that this conversation of mental health It's not something that ends here, it's not something that ends on the trip to Adelaide, it's something that's a 365 day a year thing, and it's something where we need to continue to make it not be weird and to talk about our feelings to acknowledge that there's challenges and to acknowledge that it's okay to talk to your therapist, it's okay to talk to the chaplain, and it's okay to not be okay, especially within the fire service, we see some pretty challenging things that maybe, one or two days of this doesn't really seem like much, but it's those, that kind of death of a thousand cuts that if you don't acknowledge it and deal with it, you can build up resentment. You can build up, you react to your loved ones. So those are some signs that I've seen with some others where it's just, you can't bottle up because we are human beings, we're not human doings, you know, we have, we have, that's, that's it.

[19:34] Max Cottingham: I've never heard that's good. Yeah, we are human beings, we are human doings. We're not robots.

[19:39] Kevin Sofen: We're humans. Last time I checked, I'm pretty sure.

[19:42] Max Cottingham: Most of us, yeah. AI hasn't got that far.

[19:44] Kevin Sofen: No, I mean, I use AI more than I'd like to admit, but yeah, AI is a, that's a whole other conversation. Yeah. you know, firefighter and an operator and just the work that you're leading. Is there any quote or words of wisdom that you live by that drives you?

[20:08] Max Cottingham: Not necessarily a quote but I guess a few things that I was taught early on and at times the fire service can be quite proud and egotistical and you know, we often think that we're better than we are at Things so I was taught from a very young age that it doesn't matter what you do in the fire service, you're only ever as good as your last job. And that last job depends on your training in three key areas. That's training in your fitness, that's training in your education, that's training in your skills. So you're drilling in the yard, you're in the computer room, you're educating yourself and you're learning, you're crafting your trade through the theoretical knowledge. And then you're also in the gym training because regardless of what we'd like to think, you have to have a level of physical fitness to do this job. So I guess not so much a quote, but a mentality that is you know, challenge yourself every day. You know, ignore the other challenges there are, but be a better you. I guess that's sort of that atomic habits style, one percent every day sort of thing. But also be kind to yourself. You know, like if you didn't be better, one percent better today, that's all right. Take a day off. Relax. Just constantly push to try and improve and know your job and know your craft. And that'd be about all for me. Just push hard, train hard and look after each other. Care for one another.

[21:26] Kevin Sofen: Maxwell, it's been a pleasure. Thank you very much and stay in touch, man.

[21:30] Max Cottingham: You travel home safe.

[21:32] Kevin Sofen: Thanks, mate. And that's a wrap for this episode of the Smart Firefighting Podcast. If you found value in this conversation, hit like leave a comment, share it to someone and tell us what you enjoyed most. Take care and thanks for listening.