Why Use Outreach Templates?
As part of living with my disability of bipolar disorder, I sometimes have found myself ruminating and perseverating about whether to send a message, making endless revisions. This is related to anxieties I have felt facing mental illness stigma, and obsessive and intrusive thoughts that can emerge due to my emotional regulation challenges. When left unaddressed, these kinds of symptoms have led to my being hospitalized five times in the past – always related to these kinds of thinking problems.
Creating definitive, standard templates and outreach approaches helps me avoid having any new situation become a dangerous black hole. I have spent years studying conflict resolution best practices and adapting them into tools and templates. After spending over a decade teaching other practitioners and parties ways to use tools like this, I finally realized I should incorporate more of these structures into my day-to-day outreach.
What Kinds Of Outreach Templates?
Below are some different types of outreach templates I use:
- Disability Accessibility Templates – These are tools I use to communicate about my disability needs, including letting people know about my disability limitations in a proactive manner and responding to challenges with reasonable accommodation requests. Access them at www.danberstein.com/disability
- Walk n’ Talk – Social support is essential for my wellbeing, as is exercise. I invite family, friends, colleagues, and new connections to sign up for slots to join me for a conversation while I walk on my walking pad. Sign up for a slot, or learn about possible talk topics, at www.danberstein.com/talk
- Support System Planning – It can be hard to ask people for support and manage supporter relationships without people having bitterness and burnout. These templates help me cast a wide net for support, and offer clear asks, to facilitate stronger support relationships. Become part of my support system by filling out the form at www.danberstein.com/support
- HEART – Part of my work involves sharing my lived experiences in order to provide contact education that can help reduce mental illness stigma. Sometimes that involves sharing details about the people and organizations I interact with. You can learn more about the HEART methodology I use for that at www.danberstein.com/heart
- SHARE – Sometimes my own experiences become a case study, and I make structured accessibility requests to many people and organizations to create public resources to help others with disabilities learn from my experiences. The SHARE process I follow is detailed at www.danberstein.com/share
- I CARE – When people report problems related to mental illness stigma and discrimination, it can be a long and challenging road. I use a model that aims for solutions that are immediate (I), curative (C), aloof (A), realistic (R), and easy (E). The I CARE model was originally conceived as part of my Mental Health Safe Project’s Stigma Spotlights framework, which can be reviewed at www.mhsafe.org/stigma-spotlights
- Non-Response – When someone does not respond to me, I send a standard check-in message to let them know that I don’t plan to contact them again unless I hear from them, but I still welcome hearing from them. The Non-Response Check-In template explains why I do this to reduce my anxiety about following up with someone who may not want to hear from me. It is available at www.danberstein.com/non-response