Advice for applicants
- Seek help from those you feel most comfortable with.
- Recognise your triggers, and make sure your colleagues also recognise them.
- Keep talking.
All of my family have been in the fire service - 13 of them in Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service. My father was a divisional officer who retired in 1998 and my two brothers are still serving.
I love working as part of a team, saving people’s lives. The best part of my job is when those people come back to say thank you.
Being in the fire service is all I wanted to do. I originally joined as an on-call firefighter and did this alongside my full-time job before joining as a wholetime firefighter through the migration programme which recruits only from the on-call service.
I have struggled with my mental health for a long time, and at first, I did not tell my fire service as I thought that there was a lack of understanding about mental health and I didn’t feel there was any support. When everything began to spiral out of control I ended up back on medication. I got talking to my station manager who could see something wasn’t right and I told him everything. He was very understanding and supportive. He encouraged me to speak with Occupational Health which I did. They were fantastic.
I’ve been very successful in my role and in 10 years time I would like to be a station manager. The fire service is very supportive and although I still have dark days, I work through it.