Serving Those Who Serve: First Responder Chaplain Steve Wickham

Episode Description:

In this moving conversation, Dr Tony Pisani speaks with Steve Wickham, a workplace health and safety professional, chaplain, and writer. Steve shares his remarkable journey from his early days as a tradesman in Western Australia, through personal trials of grief, loss, and recovery, to his current roles supporting first responders and families.

With honesty and warmth, Steve opens up about the people who shaped his path, the importance of kinship and purpose, and the lessons he has learned from decades of walking alongside others in crisis. His reflections highlight the power of presence, humility, and hope in the face of life’s deepest challenges.

Guest: 

• Steve Wickham is a chaplain, pastor, and writer based in Western Australia. He began his career as a tradesman before moving into health and safety in 1997, working for decades as a safety professional. Today, he serves as a part-time chaplain with the Department of Fire and Emergency Services and Children and Families Pastor at a Baptist church

Host: 

• Professor Tony Pisani is a professor, clinician, and founder of SafeSide Prevention, leading its mission to build safer, more connected military, health, education, and workplace communities.

Referenced Resources:

• The Entitlement Cure — Dr John Townsend
• Heartfelt (Australia) — photography and support for families experiencing stillbirth and infant loss
• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing)
• When lighthearted chatter takes a turn
• Shining Gift of God: A Memoir of the Life of Nathanael Marcus
• Department of Fire and Emergency Services (WA) – wellness and chaplaincy support 

Transcript

Tony: There's a movie from the late nineties called As Good As It Gets starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt, and there's this part that I really love, where Jack Nicholson tells Helen Hunt, "you make me wanna be a better man." Well, that's exactly how I felt after talking with today's guest, Steve Wickham.

Steve is a chaplain with Western Australia's Fire and Emergency Services and a pastor who has transformed his own experiences with loss into a life of service. We explore his journey from mechanical fitter to chaplain, shaped by a mentor named DJ who stood up for him when he couldn't stand up for himself.

We discuss the art of presence without words, the silent grief of miscarriage and what first responders teach all of us about resilience. This conversation left me reflecting on my own approach to work, loss and what it means to truly serve others. I hope it does the same for you. Well, Steve, thank you so much for being here and talking with me.

Steve: Thanks, Tony.

Yeah, it's great to be here.

Tony: I know today we're gonna cover a whole range of topics. You've had a really interesting career in workplace health and safety. You're a chaplain, you're a pastor. And as I was preparing to talk with you, I read a whole bunch of your blog as well.

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: And there was one story that stuck out to me and it was about someone named DJ.

Steve: Oh, DJ. Yeah.

Tony: I wonder if you could tell the story of DJ and what he meant to your life.

Steve: Yeah. It's like a superhero. I mean, I was three years into my apprenticeship and really not, going well.

Tony: Can you tell me, apprenticeship?

Steve: Apprenticeship in fitting and turning.

So a mechanical trade and, probably wasn't being treated that well by some of my coworkers. And there was something that DJ did that I didn't learn about subsequently for a little while, but he did something to give feedback to this group of older men who were not treating me well. He basically spoke, what I say, spoke the truth in love.

He challenged them and he simply said look, if you don't get off this guy's case, he will never become anything.

You need

to give him a break.

And

I needed that. And that has been very much a model of my career in advocating for others.

Tony: How so?

Steve: I just saw that as what a wonderful thing.

I never expected that to happen. And that the fourth year of my apprenticeship, I had received a lot of favor. I just, had, I felt like I did gain that confidence that I needed and all because one man stood up in a place where I wasn't even aware of. And he protected me. He advocated for me.

And I think that was, it's, I think everybody needs a DJ in their lives. And as a 20-year-old, 19 or 20-year-old, I dunno who I would be today if that hadn't happened.

Tony: So

 he kind of stood up for you?

Steve: Yes.

Tony: At that kind of key moment. So, you've had a really, really interesting professional journey.

Can you walk us through your professional journey, Steve?

Steve: So a trade background, and I was a trade until, the late twenties and I got into maintenance planning and then from there into safety and health work, health and safety in 97. And have been a safety professional ever since.

Started at DFES, most recently in the safety field

Tony: And

just for our international listeners, DFES?

Steve: Oh, so Department of Fire and Emergency Services, Western Australia. So that's my current employer, one of my current employers. So the safety piece then moved. I lost my first marriage in 2003, so six years into that sort of safety journey.

And that engaged me with a different purpose and that was, I basically had to, I had a different purpose. The purpose was around recovery and the purpose was around mental health and out of my own pain and grief, in that season, catapulted me into pastoral ministry. And so I studied to become a pastor in 2005.

And then I started the journey then and have been a pastor and a chaplain as well.

Tony: Okay. Some people who watch or listen to this podcast don't really know too much about workplace health and safety, that field. Could you describe that?

Steve: Well, the premise is that all incidents and accidents are preventable.

And so we're trying to prevent them, but also deal with those things that do happen. So there are incident investigations that you're involved in. Obviously, trying to make sure the plant is safe for workers, that workers are safe in the occupational environment, in the workplace, and healthy as well.

So occupational health, trying to remove hazards and trying to mitigate and lower risks, risk management. Keeping people safe is actually a serious business and getting them to go home of an evening and that sort of thing, going back to their families, that's what the life is all about. We only work for our life really at the end of the day.

So, hearts and minds, getting away from the tick list, the boring stuff, doing it for the right reasons, the right motivation.

Tony: You started out in fitting? And what does that job involve, for people who wouldn't know about it?

Steve: So it's maintaining diesel engines. For me, it was diesel engines, centrifugal pumps, working on machinery.

It's welding, it's using lathes and milling machines is using metal working machinery. There are lots of hazards. And so the welding, the mechanical work that you do, there's lots of energy forces. So, trying to deal with that and do a good job maintaining equipment.

Tony: How did that time of your life shape you?

Steve: Well, I think those early apprenticeship years really shaped me in that fourth year and into my early trade years, that sense of identity, that I was good at something, that I could pull something apart and fix things, recondition an engine or, recondition a pump, put it back together, paint it up, and you'd send it back, out to service and you'd see it working and it was, that's wonderful, isn't it?

You can see it's so tangible. Such a tangible thing.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. So from there, what was next?

Steve: So maintenance planning, so thinking about how to plan maintenance. So you can be preventive as much as you can or you can do, you shut down some of that sort of thing. but then what was pretty only in that for about 18 months and then got into safety and I got my first opportunity in 1997 in a fertiliser and chemical scenario.

So you got major four major hazard facilities. I was in a fertiliser production plan, but I was also in emergency response teams dealing with chlorine leaks and where, you pray not chlorine leaks, but chlorine, sodium cyanide, ammonia, ammonium nitrate. Ammonium nitrate is an explosive.

So big hazards, acids and lots of things that can burn your, or worse, so it was, yeah.

Tony: One of the things that we're really interested in the Never the Same podcast is how people have evolved over time. How their thinking has evolved. And I'm curious about how your approach to workplace safety and maybe mental health as well, how has that evolved over time?

Steve: I

 think we're in a much better age now, mental health, receptivity around, mental health issues. So people are a lot more queued in than what they would've been 20, 30 years ago.

Tony: So how did you get involved in suicide prevention?

Steve: Well, I think professionally was a bit later than this, but my first involvement with or my first exposure was my younger brother, 18 months younger than me, found his best friend at 18 And who was the first one to try and save him, try and help recover that situation. We made a pact as brothers at that point in time that we would never do something like that. But it's, I think the later as time has gone on, losing my first marriage, I had a couple of times when I was very, very close.

One particular time when I was, really probably 20 meters away, five minutes away from actually going, carrying out the act. And, yeah. So I think out of that and becoming a professional subsequently. The heart is already geared toward suicide prevention and to normalise the fact that I believe maybe it's not a case of if you know this particular individual or that one, but it's a case of when if we were in that much pain or we lack purpose or for whatever reasons anybody can get to that place.

Tony: How does that inform the way you address suicide?

Steve: Yeah,

I think, I guess it's never out of my mind if people are in pain, you always want to check on them and see if it's, my mind's always open to the, idea that they might be questioning how life is going and whether they would want to harm themselves.

Yeah, definitely.

Tony: Where did you grow up?

Steve: I grew up in the Pilborough. So, we're in Perth, so 1500 Ks north or kilometers north, a thousand miles north, in a fairly arid site. It's quite a dry hot environment. It is very isolated. It's a long way away from anywhere that the town that I grew up in, we had about 10,000 people, very mining centric.

So that was the reason why those towns are there in the first place. I grew up in an era in the 1980s and, I guess 19, yep, say 1980s and 1990s, where safety and health or, mental health or suicide prevention is not really on the radar. It's a culture around work hard, drink hard, play hard, lots of sport, lots of drinking, lots of working and, then yeah, obviously it's a fairly family oriented, place as well.

I'm very thankful for my upbringing up in the Pilbara, but also it's very isolated place as well.

Tony: You still have family there?

Steve: No, all my family are in Perth. And I think we were in the mid nineties. Most of my family migrated, including myself down to Perth. Yeah. So at the adult years, and two of my children were born in Karratha.

Well, Karratha, port Headland, a bit further north. The older I get, the more reminiscent or the more nostalgic I become.

And the more I'm just touched by, wow, 40 years ago or 50 years ago, I lived in that house or that's what...

Tony: So tell us about your roles now.

Steve: Yeah. Okay. So work for Department of Fire and Emergency Services as a part-time chaplain, up until two months ago, I was managing the wellness branch, which is a psychology chaplain c peer support and critical incident response.

DFES or Department of Fire and Emergency Services is an agency of about 30,000 people. 26,000 of those people are volunteers. My current role is part-time chaplain, so I'm working within that, wellness branch that I've managed. And I'm also a part-time children and families pastor at a Baptist church.

And so that's great that we've got those two roles. I'm also involved with, a peak body, called VESPIIA, Veterans Emergency Services Police in Industry Institute of Australia, and, helping with to create a cadre of Padres. So, military term cadre for a group and, Padres obviously is fathers or chaplains.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. Well, so many things I'm interested in learning about those different roles that you have. Let's start with fire and emergency services. I've been learning about how those services work here in Western Australia.

And I'm

 curious what your observation is about, wellness and mental health among the, maybe the professional firefighters as well as the volunteers.

Steve: Yeah.

Yeah.

So we've got career firefighters, volunteer firefighters. I think it'd be fair to say that, many of the people that we deal with, responding to road crashes, so they'll see trauma firsthand.

We hear it a little bit, obviously secondhand, but it's not unusual for a volunteer to be in a regional or remote location and to respond to a road crash where there's fatalities and they're known to the crews. So that's one of the big issues.

Tony: Oh, they actually know the person.

Steve: They know the person or they know of the person or they can respond. And it's often the case and it, West Australia is a huge state, very wide, very, it's a massive state. So it's, we've got career stations, probably 400 kilometers away from Perth, one at 600 kilometers away, but vast parts of the state are not covered by career, fire and rescue.

So that's, I guess that's one of the issues and helping people with trauma, helping them to access psychological services that they can do, EMDR, eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing kind of therapies and that sort of thing is important. Yeah.

Tony: What do you think are the skills or characteristics of the areas where people seem to be quite resilient to the things that they see and things they experience?

What do you notice about that?

Steve: As far as people who are resilient, I don't know, maybe there's some biological reasons why some people are, particularly resilient. I think I have a personal view that this internal locus of control, if we have a sense of the world, that we've got some internal power and have got some power or agency of response, that helps a lot of the time.

So we don't feel like we're, we have to be in this painful place, that we can work our way out of it and that we can reach out for the supports.

If we're connected to the community, if we enjoy, if we're not fearful of community. And I know there was a time in my life 2012 or before 2012 and I was probably reticent to jump into the community and I think that is actually a really important part of living a good resilient life in the midst of these kinds of challenges.

Tony: Yeah. We, we have a prevention program that is partially about building protective strengths in the relationship networks for first responders as well as military personnel. And one of the, key concepts has to do with that connection between people that it's, really critical, they call it kinship.

And, I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit. What have you seen in terms of kinship among, among fire.

Steve: I

 think it's the essence of life beyond firefighting, but I've seen it in, fire crews, where there's a strong sense of connection, a brotherhood, a sisterhood, kinship.

I think that's so important, isn't it? I know from my early days in recovering, part of losing my first marriage, and going into, I had a drinking problem at the time, went and did AA, AA taught me a lot about recovery, unity, and service, about connecting with.

That's actually a lot of that, that's about connecting with other people. And I think if we have, if you're around supportive people, if we've got a, if you are in a crew of four people and you've got support, that's what many of the times, that's what we need. We need that peer support. In fact, it's probably an underused and under tapped into resource that we could, there's so much more, and realistically, many of our people rely on their peers and they don't, they might get a little bit of help from chaplaincy or from psychologists, but it's their peers that actually help them most.

Tony: Oh, that's interesting. You've mentioned a couple of times that you had this really tough period in your life around the of your marriage. What helped you the most during that time?

Steve: I think it was actually the, connections or the, fellowship within AA. It's a very non-judgmental place to go there and to be loved away. And what I needed, I never missed alcohol, but what I needed at the time is that I needed other men to come alongside me and other people to come alongside me and guide me and help me through it. When I was at my rock bottoms and you have those days when you, they're just really hard and, or when you're really anxious, you reach out to somebody and sometimes it's 10 minutes or, half an hour, and then all of a sudden you feel better and then it's enough to get you through that day.

Tony: Yeah. Gosh, you're making me think about this program again, because one of the other core, so one of the cores is this kinship.

Another one is guidance. Getting guidance from other people. And then one other one is about purpose. So I'm curious about your purpose. You're a chaplain.

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: And I know your faith is important to you. Could you talk about your sense of purpose and the role that your faith plays in your work and how you understand suicide prevention and safety?

Steve: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Purpose is hugely important for me. I feel like I'm, I struggle when there's not a purpose in life or when there's not a purpose in the dynamic. I don't shoot the breeze very well. Or, I guess the term is. I don't, I'd rather go to a deeper place or talk about deep things or be into, and most people, I know people have hobbies. In some ways work is a bit of a hobby. The work that I'm involved in, that's my passion and my purpose.

Tony: Yeah.

Steve: I don't even see myself, I know that at some point I'll retire, but I feel like I love what I do. it's very meaningful and fulfilling and faith, knowing that I'm enough, knowing that I've got hope, knowing that my faith can carry me through the hardest of times and actually the help that I received back then.

I'm in a place where I'm just giving that back. It's not just and the people I'm helping now will give it back to others. That's, for me, that's the purpose of that.

Tony: How did you come to your faith?

Steve: Well, I first became Christian in 1990, but I never got it for 12 or 13 years. And that was the marriage where I was kinda living a double life.

I was very career focused and I was managing an alcohol, another drug program as one thing in safety, and I was starting to struggle into misusing alcohol on weekends. And so I became almost, I felt like a hypocrite. And it's funny how the worst thing that could happened to me, the loss of my marriage actually became the best thing that could have happened to me because it suddenly made me wake up, suddenly made me face the truths that I need needed to face. And with the guidance of sponsors in AA initially, and then with pastors and others, a bit later on, that sort of mentoring was very instrumental in helping me grow through this kind of harsh recovery space.

Tony: Say more. What about that journey?

Steve: I

 think it was in AA there's the 12 step program, step four of that. So if the first three, you go through it. The step four is about, a rigorous moral inventory. And it's the first time I went for a deep dive into actually if I can face all these things that are probably not right about me or things that I'm ashamed about or feel guilty about, if I can face that. Yeah, it's incredibly empowering to do that and then to share with a sponsor or a mentor those things, it's like from a spiritual angle, and Christians will know this, it's like the enemy doesn't have anything on you anymore. You feel liberated and free. And I sense that faith is simply just trusting.

It's just simply surrendering to the moment, surrendering to a will that's better than mine. I'm looking for guidance from, guidance that's infinitely better than mine.

Tony: How do you define recovery? And people, I think there's a lot of different ways that people think about recovery, from that's even a term that different people do or don't use.

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: What does it mean for you and how do you think about that process?

Steve: Very variated term, isn't it? Recovery, a bit like trauma, but I think for recovery, for me, for alcohol, I'm always in recovery. I'll never drink again. But to me, I don't feel like I have to do much work of recovery in that space

'cause I have never missed it. But I sense that we're all on some sort of recovery. If we talk life, we are gonna be recovering from situations that happened six weeks ago or six months ago. I think life, the challenges of life around reconciling those things, redeeming those things.

So I think we should be open to the concept of re recovery. Recovery shouldn't be a pathologised kind of word. It shouldn't be something that is stigmatising. I think recovery is, it's a beautiful thing to think that we are. And if I'm helping someone in recovery, if I can share the parts of my life that I'm still in recovery with, they feel like they've got a friend.

They feel like they've got a, someone who is a guide, but someone who gets them. And we are more equal than we realise.

Tony: So,

you said you're a children's pastor of a church. What's your calling there and what do you hope that the children take from your pastor?

Steve: I

 sense that life is about protecting the vulnerable and it is serving the vulnerable and helping, right, from a mentoring perspective, isn't it? I think if I can work with a child or, oversee, adults who are working with children and set up an environment where children feel safe, but they'll also enjoy life.

I think those two things, if we can get that, those things right, that's a memorable childhood, and I think that's super important. There's still so much trauma that happens in childhood. If we can mitigate that or if we can give children the tools to deal with the traumas. And I sense that in childhood or in our lives, we will experience traumas.

It's not a case of if it's a more of a case of when. So to help, there's a redemptive side of all of this.

We can redeem these things.

Tony: Now let's talk about your chaplain work with the firefighters and other people in emergency services. Yeah, tell me about that work. How do you approach it and, what, do you think people should know about the experiences of people who protect us?

Steve: Yes. It's incredible work. I find that it's like there's so many things that come at you. There's so many needs, but I love being in that space where there are, it's, there's a lot going on. so there are always people in need.

There are always incidents that are happening. So there's the ability to come and, if we respond to an incident, classic chaplaincy is to show up and shut up. So it really is a very much a sense of not getting in the way, providing support, not through words. It's through actually being there.

So may be a hand on a shoulder. It's a person that could cry with if they're in that place. I responded to an incident six months ago where a firefighter lost his brother and he turned out to this incident and is close to home and the family are all on scene in the hot zone.

And so it's a chaotic scene, but I think those places where there are no words, there are no solutions, that you can just be, that's great chaplaincy. And I think that's, that's where chaplains can make a difference.

Tony: I wonder what the rest of us could learn from that.

Most of us don't face on a daily basis that kind of death and destruction you and other people, in the cadre of Padres, do. I think there's something to be learned there?

Steve: I think that less is more, less is more the more I don't bring anything but me.

No pre preconceived notions. In fact, helping with mental health, or anybody in crisis is easier than we can ever imagine, because if we're just prepared to be there, there's a classic scene in the movie Inside Out, when sadness is sitting next to, Bing Bong and it's just sitting in the truth just with a person.

So it's actually really empowering and really powerful thing. And sometimes I'm surprised by how much people are thankful that you didn't try and say anything. You didn't try and sugar, you didn't, sugar code or anything like that. But I would want to encourage anybody watching that if you're in that place, just to sit there and, to be present and, to empathise and don't feel like you need to say anything.

Tony: Yeah. That's really helpful. I think a lot of and, certainly in professional training and things like that, it's always about what should we say? And I think this is a really helpful reminder that, often it's not saying, and, be able to tolerate and listen for it.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. It's such a gift. and you'll get this in classic counseling or chaplaincy where people are, but it's, we listen to respond everywhere in life, even in our marriages. And we should be more prepared to listen to, to hold a bit of space, let it sit and then respond, have a bit of a thing and slow things down a bit.

I think that's the gift in that, in this kind of space, if we can just, yeah. The classic term hold space for people is really important.

Tony: Do you do that in your life outside of your work?

Steve: I think, where counseling and chaplaincy and pastoral work first, sees and as has limits in the family, isn't it?

And I've, one of the things, I've been involved in is peacemaking. And I had a period 2018 to 2020 where I was involved in this peacemaking kind of ministry. Peacemaking is all about being able to apologise for things we get wrong. It's all about redeeming and actually working through conflict.

So for me, I've had situations where my 12-year-old son was six and he challenged me at one particular time, said, "Dad, are you being a peacemaker?" I was being, I got angry. I lost my cool. But I think that families, all of us, all our families got some dysfunctions. We're all human beings at the end of the day.

And I think it's very empowering to know that, we can put things back together if we're prepared to be humble and reflect on what we've done. So, I don't think that I am, I'm not a perfect father, not a perfect husband. I do feel like I've married up. Yeah. And so, yeah, I'm very blessed to be, married, to my wife.

Tony: Tell me, you said humble. Tell me about humility.

Steve: I

 think the, humility is a bedrock of wisdom, really. If we are, if I'm humble, if we are both humble in a relationship, we can negotiate conflict, we can negotiate hard times. It's about good insight, good levels of insight. I can see things.

I can, if I've done something to hurt you, I could actually see that for myself, maybe and own it. And actually, hey, Tony, I probably shouldn't have said that. What how I said it. I think that sort of insight is so good for our relationships and so good for ourselves as well.

Tony: Yeah.

I wanna ask you a little bit more about the experiences that you've seen and what makes emergency responders tick.

Yeah. So tell me about your, what you've learned about serving, people in these very demanding roles.

Steve: I

think what I have learned mostly, it depends on the demographic or maybe the, I dunno, the generation, I think, as a Gen X, some gen, our Gen X people respond differently than they some of the millennials and that sort of thing. But, essentially the same kind of people as anybody in society, but have got a community ethic and they feel like they've got a service mindset and wanna serve the community.

And so we will, we'll charge into dangerous situations to literally save the community, but it's essentially the same as really anybody. And, I think, yeah, just to normalise the mental health struggles that they'll have. They're immersed in situations that I don't think a lot of people really understand when they get involved in this work, what they're gonna see and what they're gonna experience and what trajectory that'll take them on and what trauma may cost them.

Tony: You were just talking a minute ago about how sometimes, no words is better than lots, less is more

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: when it comes to grief. And, you shared, separately before when we were preparing for this about a very sad thing in your own life or grief of a miscarriage.

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: That you experienced. And it was very moving to me. Especially you mentioned that maybe men don't always talk about that or would you share what you feel comfortable to, about that loss.

Steve: Yeah. So we'd lost Nathaniel at 37 weeks.

So it was, and it was stillbirth. It was interesting that at the 19 week scan, most people go and get their baby photos, and that's what, that's our expectation as well when we went to the scan and then we learned was quite a different situation when you're sent off and then you're told to come back and see the, and then you, see the doctor and the doctor says, we've got some issues here.

And it took a few weeks before we got a diagnosis, but it sent us on a trajectory of four months of my wife having amnio reduction procedures. So they're actually removing with a needle under ultrasound the amniotic fluid because she was producing so much and our baby, Nathaniel, had he been alive or born alive would've been, we had Pallister-Killian syndrome, PKS, which is a very rare condition, affects the 12th chromosome and there's only 300 children in the world that alive at any sort of, at any point that have got this. But it was very, it wasn't as traumatic in that four month period leading up to it. But the birth was quite traumatic and afterwards it was quite traumatic as well.

And one of the things that I found, going through this, and I've been connected with other fathers going through this as well, whether it's miscarriage with their partners or stillbirth or that any of that sort of loss is, I don't think men really know how to deal with that or how to cope with it.

And I, in my hearts, I just couldn't really connect with that, that how do we yea, how do we do that?

Tony: Yeah. How, did you

Steve: Well, for me, I was a pastor in a medium sized church. It was a big enough church that people would want to know. And I felt like I had a choice. Whether I, do we, withdraw and keep it a secret or do we, just tell everybody, and I think we chose wisely to, and we listed a lot of support.

We had a lot of...

Tony: You

ended up telling people?

Steve: Yeah.

Yeah. And I've been a writer or a blogger for many years and throughout it was my choice to use blogs, my writing, to write down the things that I was experiencing on a particular day, or insights I was getting or experiences and share that with people.

And, I think that was good. Yeah. It was good for

us.

Tony: Could you take us and just slow that down a little bit because I think, this is obviously miscarriages are commonand I think people are often in that situation

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: of having to decide, do we share this news with other people or not?

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: Could you if you can, take us back to that, whatever insight you can share about, what was it like deciding that? How did you decide to share that with your church community? Whatever you can share.

Steve: I

 don't know. I think, all I felt that was, I was on, it was on a precipice of do we not share anything or do we share, it was either one or the other.

And so it was a fairly easy choice in the end, and I had, for me, there was that platform that I was writing on a daily basis. A lot of the things. It fitted with my, the way that I was already living.

Tony: And your wife?

Steve: Yeah. And she was, she's always been very supportive of that as well.

And I think there was, there were things that would come from her. There were insights that came for her from her that I would write about, and she would read it and say actually that makes sense. Thank you. Like, thank you for putting that in. There was one situation where she would often go to the shops and people are delighted.

Oh, you see a pregnant lady? Oh, what are you having? And, when are you due? And, I think Sarah got a little bit sick of saying, well, actually we, we are not, we, ours is not gonna be a good outcome. We knew that Nathaniel was not gonna survive.

So that was always an awkward, so one of the things that I wrote about was how do you deal with that kind of situation?

And I think that sort of, that particular article validated what Sarah was going through.

Tony: Oh, well, we'll definitely put a link to that in our kind of episode notes. I don't think I came across that among the ones that I had read, but I'm really interested in it.

That must have been very hard and sad for, and four months is a long time.

Steve: Yeah. When you're, yeah. Sarah's way of coping with the grief is that there were, that she'd have five or 10 minute periods or half an hour when she was incredibly sad and, but then she would decide, I'm gonna, I'm stoically, I'm gonna, well, we just need to keep on going.

But she always faced the truth. I think we did that together. It probably bonded us and I think that's an opportunity in these things to deepen our relationships as well.

Tony: So lemme ask another bit of thoughts on this? One of the things that I know, and I don't know if you know this, but one thing I'm, in addition to being a psychologist and work on suicide prevention, I'm also a family therapist.

And one of the situations I've seen before is a family that isn't sure how to talk about that child that was lost at miscarriage. Do we say we have three children and we, or do we say we had four and one died. How do you handle that and what wisdom can you add to that?

Steve: I'll often say that I've got four children, but did have a fifth and I sense that it's an opportunity to validate Nathaniel's life to remember him and to not shy away from it. He's part of it. He'll always, and I sense spiritually. He can't come to us, we can go to him.

And this is like a biblical model from King David, and he lost his son. We're essentially eternal beings. We're gonna go back. We'll reunite. That's the hope. But making that he's real. And we remember him in different ways throughout the year. And there's, yeah, I think that's how, well we, on his first heaven day, so a year after he, he was stillborn,

we had a party. And each, on the 15th of October, every year there's a infant loss day. So that's another time to celebrate. But one in four pregnancies, and don't, miscarriage, stillbirth, all these. So it's actually quite common. Yeah. And I think for women and for men and for anybody that's, impacted by this, so many people are, and they call it silent grief.

'cause we don't, talk about it. Yeah. We shove it under the carpet.

Tony: I know what I learned, how common it was. I was shocked because I, and even now I still do not, don't hear very much about that.

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: Well, thank you for, sharing that. And, yeah. How about your other kids?

What do they know? What do they, how do they think about, think about Nathaniel's thing?

Steve: Yeah,

I think, because of our approach, we end up having, an organisation called Heartfelt. So Heartfelt and an Australian organisation that do photography for these kinds of bespoke kind of shoots, aren't they?

But you, how do you take photos? Of these kinds of situations. So they actually helped us. We had all of my family and even my mother lost a, we, I've got a stillborn sister, 1973. And it was very, very hard for mum for decades. And I think the fact that Nathaniel come along 41 years later, it actually helped her with some of her healing.

And so it brought the family together. But that we talk about him openly. And I think as the premise and having lost a first marriage, I felt like after that I became a, what I call a student of grief, 'cause I'm just fascinated by the depths that, that you can be taken to in this life.

And how I think that the depths are the key. That's the, key to, the heights. If you're predicting you can only survive those depths and grow through them and heal through them. Go gently with yourself, that sort of thing.

Tony: Yeah. I know that you've also done, people's funerals. Including, I guess a whole range of circumstances.

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: What have you learned from that?

Steve: I think people are rawest. They're most themselves, they're most, the filters are down. People are probably their most compassionate when they're at a funeral, and I love that.

I love before, conducting funerals. I love being at funerals because we are honoring someone and that honoring and respecting kind of the space is so, it's beautiful. It is. And being okay with the emotions, being able to cry with one another and be being free to do that. I think that's such a gift.

Tony: Yeah. It seems like there's more, maybe there's more allowance for

that at a funeral than most of the time, because people are having feelings all the time. But it seems like it's given some space there.

Steve: And isn't it funny, Tony, how often the tears, but then there's laughter as well.

Tony: Yeah. There's like essential part of the whole thing,

right?

Yeah,

what, have you noticed about that?

Steve: I just find, and especially with a few, I had an interaction with a firefighter who was 36 years in the, as a firefighter, very tough as nails kind of guy. And I rang him one night, and, he said, he was in, he's in tears at one point, and he said, then he laughed at me.

He said, look at what you've done to me. You've made me, you've made me cry. And then we laughed a bit and we cried. We cried a bit. And we face the truth of it. The tears, that, that this, things have changed, and can't be, can't be changed back, but of a sense, wow, how did I find myself in tears?

And I think my father, I lost mom in 2022, and we've been so inspired by my dad. It's very much grieved like that. We feared that he wouldn't grieve very well, but he does, when he has those emotional moments, he's true to himself and then has a bit of a laugh about it. Look at, me.

Yeah. I think it's beautiful.

Tony: And you've been involved in lots of different workplace, like was from, your original days back in, the fitting and, mechanical things all the way to chemical. And then also thinking about workplaces among first responders.

How does the approach to that work interact with your counseling and crisis intervention and suicide prevention. Tell me about how those two worlds, inform each other.

Steve: Yeah,

it's interesting, I think of organisational culture. Good organisational culture is about caring, about being effective and efficient, but also people enjoying the work.

So you've got that, and I think in, from a counseling viewpoint, having a relationship where you can communicate where people do feel safe, they, feel met, they feel like, an hour with, in that space is, something that really gives them something of a resource, something of, that maybe is more than they expected to, receive.

But bringing those two worlds together, I think there's, integrity in, communicating in a way that's truthful, that's respectful. And I think what I've loved about organisational cultures is where you've got, you've got the chain of command who are in sync with one another, the same.

The messages are coming down, the messages are going up, and there's actually, there's, it probably comes back to that humility piece as well. If you've got humble leaders, but also people from the shop floor who are passionate, and who are empowered, engaged, and encouraged to provide to provide what they've got.

And I think the, best counseling relationships I've had is where you do feel that connection with the client and that you feel like. There is deep trust, there's a deep rapport. You can go to deep issues, and you can pivot, quite a bit. And you get a lot done in an, in 50 minutes or an hour and a half or however long the session lasts for.

Tony: Yeah. One common thread is, well, there's humility. There's communication. And one thing I keep hearing from you is about loving work and loving the work that you do and people who you're working with loving their work. We're in age where there's a lot of focus on work life balance. How much do we give to our jobs? How much do we

Steve: Yeah.

Tony: draw lines. Could you talk about like maybe where you are with that and different evolutions you've had?

Steve: I

 think I've always believed that I want to enjoy my work. It's quarter of my life and I want to be doing something that I do enjoy, that I can feel like I'm achieving something or I'm helping out, or I'm advocating for something or that I'm leaving some sort of legacy.

I think that's really important. It's something if we can enjoy our work, our work should be able to, we should be from our work, we should go back into our families and our families should prosper. Rather than the other way around where people are, oh, it's a drudgery to go to work or it's, I don't like it.

And then it's sometimes that it always fills back to end of the family that I've found. And our truth as, human beings, if we can't do it at work, if we've got toxic relationships at work, for instance, that stuff always comes back to the family. But if we're in a workplace where we're around people we love working with people, or we love the work we do, that gives back, it gives back into our families and our, and our whole lives prosper.

Tony: Yeah.

That's certainly

been my experience too. What would you say for people who are in those situations where there are toxic relationships or the work is a bit of a drudgery. What advice do you have?

Steve: The biggest ad advice I'd give to anybody is that, there are some things that are out of our control.

The things that are in our control is what we think, say, and do. And then, and if we can stay within those things, I can hold my own integrity. I can respond, if someone's unkind to me, I can respond with kindness and with grace. And that does something, not only gives the relationship some sort of hope, but also gives me some, I don't have to deal with me not meeting my own values, having a situation where I'm behaving according to my own values.

I don't have that cognitive dissonance, that the mismatch between what my values are and what my behavior is. I think that's really important, and I think it's hard. It's hard in those situations

Tony: because you get pulled in.

Steve: You do, and I sense that if only we can say, well, what can I not control here?

And I think one of the, you talk about AA again, you know that the serenity prayer, God give me the, serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Wisdom to, or courage to change things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, but accepting the things we can't change. There's so much in life.

There's so much of the people we relate with, we can't change. But it's very empowering when we can accept those things. Okay. I've got only certain amount of agency here, but I have got the power of my own response.

Tony: I

have the power of my own response.

Let's talk a little bit about workplace, mental health policies.

If you were in a position to influence, workplace mental health policies. What would

you do?

Steve: I think committed policy. And for me, at the state of West Australia, we've got 130 local governments. And I've seen this in one local government, Shire of Wongan Hills, Shire of Wongan and the Ballidu, did a, road safety campaign a month or two back.

And it's an ongoing campaign where they're saying, we don't wanna meet at the side of a road at a car crash. We wanna meet in more social environments. So they're trying to raise the awareness, but their senses are such a commitment, at, from a CEO, from a president of the Shire in that.

And I think if only all of our suicide happens in every local government area happens in all towns, there surely is enough passion there. If we have a fairly standard approach or a tool or a set of strategies that we can implement and to help with someone from the bottom, from a bottom up viewpoint, get some champions and have a consolidated approach.

I think that's really important.

Tony: What are you seeing as a kind of innovations and approaches in workplace mental health?

Steve: Well, that's a good question. I see a readiness and I sense that organisations are wanting to wrestle with this whole psychosocial hazards piece. So in Western Australia, that's only become a, like a legislated thing in the last three years.

So organisations are wrestling with how do we do these, how do we manage these 20 psychosocial hazards? But we're only at the start of the journey. And I still sense where we are. We are pretty reactive. We've done the mental Health First Aid. I think Mental Health First aid courses have been good.

They have raised awareness and they've given people tools and dealing with, help helping in that way. But maybe there's pieces that we can, do from a more personal viewpoint and helping people manage their own mental health. I think that's something, but anything that connects people together, I think is, essential.

Tony: Yeah.

That they're, in addition to knowledge and learning about mental health, we need to have ways to build, to build the connection and health into these relationships. So looking ahead, I'm just curious about your kind of career ahead.

You've been in all these different settings. Pastor, a chaplain. What's ahead for you?

Steve: I

 don't know. I think, I love chaplaincy. I love working actually with people. I don't ever wanna lose that. So I think there's, and if you would ask, my wife, would say, that's the sort of thing that I don't want to, I think that's part of my purpose.

Tony: What does she see?

Steve: Oh,

I think she sees the, and a good pastor's the same thing. You're a shepherd. You're there for, you're there for relationships. It's the right relational piece. And what gives back to me is I can do relationships, eight hours a day, five days a week or what, and

Tony: It just gives you energy.

Steve: Yeah. I, and, sometimes I wrestle with tasks, and having a lot of tasks to do, but sometimes reframing that has been about, if I'm doing these tasks for people or with people, that's, gold. Yeah. But anything where I'm working with people and, helping to improve things, I'm 58 and coming up 58, so I feel like I've pretty got another 15 years full-time in me.

And I, don't think I'll ever, probably never retire, but I just want to do as much as I can while I'm alive. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. you, said you love, you love chaplaincy. Many of us think about chaplains as a, having a critical role in suicide prevention.

What would you say to other chaplains, who maybe aren't sure about what their role is, aren't in a place of loving it at the moment.. You have, I could just in talking with you, I feel this like yeah, love for people and yeah. And desire, but, what about people who are, maybe a little bit, feeling a little unsure or a little lost?

Steve: That's also a hard question in some ways because I feel like my model of chaplaincy is, or pastoring is, very much driven from a lived experience of being at the depths, the dark night of the soul a place. And so I have a natural gravitation. I wanna work with people who are in that, in those places.

If people, and I understand it, if people are not there or maybe they're struggling with their own burnout or their own life struggles or that sort of thing, I would say just be present with people. Just be present with people. Empathise as much as you get inside that other person. Try and feel what it's like to actually live their life. What are the challenges that, are set against them? And in some ways, that's a bit of a holiday from ourselves, isn't it? From our, burdens. And yeah,

Tony: I've never thought about, listening to others as a holiday from ourselves.

What about families?

Steve: They're just as important, so partners, children, parents have done a lot of work with, in those situations. So whoever's in need, whoever's touched by these things, it's important that they get their support as well. So it's one of the privileges I think if somehow, sometimes if you are, helping a, partner or a child, sometimes that can be a way of helping, the, firefighter or the emergency response worker.

Or that maybe sometimes that's the way that you get. And you don't do it for thanks, but six or 12 months down the track or two years you say you meet that person, they say, thank you for what you said to my wife, or say thank you for what you did for my, I think those things are testament, so it doesn't always have to be we, whoever, wherever the need is.

And we gotta understand that our first responders are going back into their families and it's sad that so many first responder families end up in, marriages end up in divorce or people then, and just whatever we can do to support that, it's gotta be more holistic.

Definitely. Yeah.

Tony: So let's, I wanted to ask a few questions that we sometimes ask guests. So one is, what book has influenced you?

Steve: Yeah. Back in 2016 was a pretty one of the toughest years of my life. I was, recommended a book, and probably not personally, but I was recommended a book as a read for others.

I picked it up. It was called The Entitlement Cure.

Tony: The Entitlement Cure?

Steve: The Entitlement Cure, by Dr. John Townsend. But so people might know Cloud and Townsend, the relationship gurus. I guess the whole premise of this book is neither you Tony, or I would consider ourselves entitled, but we all have pockets of entitlement.

We all have little things that if you rub us up the wrong way, we, get a bit demanding. Yeah,

Tony: I probably have a big pocket of that.

Steve: I've got a, I've got a couple of pocket, but it's so liberating to know, like, if I'm in a weak place and, we all have weak seasons and, that I like to be respected and recognised and praised and that sort of thing.

They're normal human needs, but if I don't, if there's a paucity of that, if I don't get enough of that, sometimes that can create a demand in me. And none of us want to be in the relationships where people are demanding. So I found that book was very liberating personally.

Tony: What's the antidote?

Steve: The antidote is if you can complete the sentence I deserve, and for me it was, I deserve respect, I deserve praise, I deserve recognition. What that actually does is shows us those blind spots, those pocket entitlements. And for me it's just about being aware of that, putting things into place.

It's actually awareness. And from a faith perspective, they talk about the term idolatry. If we are idolising something that's not good for us, it's gonna take our life in the wrong direction and it's not gonna make our relationships go well.

Tony: So this is if you basically say, I deserve, and then whatever comes to mind for you is probably the thing that's,

Steve: however you complete that sentences,

Tony: that's, that's tripping you out.

Oh, that's really interesting. Tell me about a significant mentor.

Steve: Okay. Probably one of the most significant mentors for me has been, was the person that was the pastor that baptised me when we were out of, we didn't relate with one another for years and years and then all of a sudden I find myself in partial ministry and reconnected with him.

But just his way of sharing stories and he's got a very similar, he's a chaplain kind of pastor, so there's, there's that 15 or 20 years ahead. The stories that he shares, the insights that he has are gold and I love that. And just empathising with the journey that I've been on has been really good.

And he's also been, and I, guess another mentor, Dr. Keith Farmer. And, he's no longer helping people as a mentor, but he talked a lot about burnout and he talked a lot about how we deal with the strains of ministry. He was, if you're purpose driven, we can be very easily burned out. And there's been a few times in my career where I've felt like I've got nothing left. And I find that, actually being part of the, part of my purpose, the key word, replenish, Keith Farm would say, what replenishes you? And for me, getting out and into nature, ironically, it's getting away from people.

Sometimes that actually works or sometimes it might be going to have a bit of time off, go and see a movie or that sort of thing. But quickly, I'm geared around that purpose piece as well, so.

Tony: What gives you, hope about suicide prevention

in

first responders?

Steve: I'm hopeful that we can get to a place where we have more connection and I'm, I see hope when I see crews or platoons, in our firefighters who are very deeply connected then, and a station officer knows his senior firefighters, their senior firefighters, they know them.

I sense that we are on a we're in a much better place in 2025 than we were in 2015 or 2005 in that way. So I've got a lot of hope. Though, actually. And people really appreciate this space. Yeah, it's a very much appreciated place, I think. So I, am hopeful.

Tony: And finally, one last, question.

You've been writing in multiple blogs for a long time. That seems like it's been really significant and I really enjoyed reading those. Taking the sort of sum total of that, what message do you hope people take from your writing, from your work, maybe even from this conversation?

Steve: To be encouraged.

I think life is, can be long, can be hard. I think of young families and people who've got, babies or young children. Life is relentless. It doesn't let up. And I, so I sense that if there's, an underpinning of hope, encouragement. I find that hope, joy, and peace, all, if you've got one, you've got the other, you've got the others.

I, that for me, that's what it's about. I often write to almost to encourage myself, you get an idea and you wanna put it out there. But I think it's life is about being encouraged and encouraging others.

Tony: Well, it's certainly encouraging just to be around you, so I appreciate you spending this time with me and spreading some of that, here with me and with our listeners and viewers.

So, yeah. Thanks so much.

Steve: Thanks so much, Tony.

Tony: Yeah. Really appreciate it.