Paul Spinks

As Paul began his career as an Advanced Australian Care Paramedic, he was aware that the job would require him to provide a supportive and calming voice to people and their families during one of the most vulnerable and stressful moments in their lives.

With an extensive background in trauma counselling, Paul was not only prepared, but also highly skilled to meet this challenge. What Paul was unprepared for was the extent that mental health played in the number of daily call outs for his crew.

Day after day, Paul found he and his team faced people in situations and circumstances of great peril, driven by their inability to cope and deal with life.

Stunned by the extent that mental health was impacting how he did his job on a daily basis, Paul went on a journey of discovery himself and was shocked to discover the mental health epidemic that had gripped Australia.

From the fact that 1 in 2 Australian’s will suffer a mental health episode at least once in their lives, or as Paul puts its during his many speaking engagements, “if I’m not talking about you, I am most certainly talking about your partner, kids, friends or work colleagues.”

Given the seriousness of the issue, with mental health today the number one cause of death in people aged 15-44, Paul made the decision that much more needed to be done to tackle this epidemic.
“Are we micro-managing ourselves sick, or are we micro-managing ourselves well”
Paul made the decision to take his message to the public, scaling back his work as a paramedic and getting in front of as many people as possible to share his message that we are “micro-managing ourselves sick.”

That the way we are living our lives in the modern age is responsible for the record levels of medications to combat depression and explains why those who live in war torn countries fight every day to survive, whilst so many in Australia make the decision to end their personal fight.

How what we eat and the lack of physical activity is contributing to this epidemic, with our physical and mental health connected to our well-being in life.

From the urban stress of Australia’s cities to the regional drug epidemics and drought-induced farmer suicides destroying Australia’s country towns, Paul has seen the pressures modern life puts on people, families and businesses, resulting in soaring medication prescriptions in the last decade.

“If only parents, relatives, supervisors and bosses could all spend a week for a ride along in an Ambulance, it would change the way they live their own lives and impact the lives of others forever”

You will be shocked to learn how cracks form in your mental and physical health and why we must try new approaches to turn around what is a national tragedy.

Whether at home or work, we need to address our behaviours in a way that is not only life changing, but lifesaving and it is time to move away from yesterday methods and focus on real solutions that will have a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of all Australians.

Paul sees mental health is the number one epidemic in this country that is holding us back and a key area of Paul’s work to raise awareness is through Australian workplaces, as he believes they have a key role to play in working with their staff to help them through difficult times in their lives.

For those employers caught with a yesterday view of the world and do not believe that this is their duty of care to help protect their staff’s mental and physical health will ultimately feel it in the bottom line.

Through his presentations Paul takes his audience on a straight talking, no nonsense journey into their personal lives, bravely sharing stories of his own struggles, challenging to audience to reset and rethink how they live their lives, before they find their mental health spiralling undetected and out of control.