Mental Health Resources
This time of year we really really need some support. The arts, culture and entertainment sectors have a huge need for mental wellness support. We work incredibly hard with very limited resources. And with 2020 being a bin fire of year there has never been more need for that.
In Australia there are a couple of places to go for mental wellness help in the arts. The resources, of course, are available to all.
Arts WellBeing Collective
The amazing Clare Spencer and the Arts Centre Melbourne set this incredible resource up. The thing that I remember from Claire’s talk in 2017 @ TLCC was (wildly paraphrased) that while we are great at pulling together after a tragedy, we need to get better at preventing them.
Support Act
The Support Act Wellbeing Helpline is a free, confidential phone counselling service, available 24/7 to anyone anywhere in Australia who works in the performing arts, music, or other creative industries.
Others in Australia are Beyond Blue and Black Dog Institute both of which have great resources.
If you have suggestions for the places that you are please comment below.
In the UK
Mind have resources for mental health and well-being UK National Arts Wellbeing Collective this is the UK version of the Arts Wellbeing Collective
(From the amazing Caryl Jones )
Neurodiversity resources
Those of you that are neurodivergent, suspect that you might be, have an ND friend colleague or family member, or are just interested in learning more might find the below resources of interest. It’s a non-exhaustive starting list and are places that I’ve found helpful.
ADHD
How to ADHD
An incredibly fun, positive and helpful place for short (5 min) videos on ADHD. Jessica McCabe has built a huge following (half a million subscribers!) of ADHDers and allies and started a great community. Have a browse.
Bullet Journal
You’ve probably heard of the bullet journal system of organising your day/week/month/etc. But did you know that the “BuJo” was created by Ryder Carroll as a way of managing his ADHD.
Autism
Neuroclastic
ASD/ASC/Asperger’s/theSpectrum whatever you want to call Austim it sure is a pretty diverse space. And there are a lot of opinions within it. If you want to learn more about autism from autistics a good place to start is https://neuroclastic.com/
Dyslexia
Some great assistive technologies and work tips.
https://www.deardyslexic.com/FAQs/what-is-assistive-technology
https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/work-careers-dyslexia/
Cartoons!Some of the most creative and easy to understand teaching and learning tools in the ND space come in the form of cartoons. That’s because they are easy to digest, fun to read, and the ND community has some incredibly skilled folk within it
… and plenty more
Thank you for these resources, Heath. I'm trying out a modified Bullet Journal set up starting this month to see if it helps me feel a little less overwhelmed!
Great idea, Maery Simmons (Past Member)!
Heath Wilder, thanks for these wonderful resources and suggestions!
I didn't know about the bullet journal fact, but that makes a lot of sense to me! I made a bullet journal a few years ago and I loved it. There was something so soothing about creating the grids I wanted and taking a few minutes each day to fill things out, or to just doodle along the margins and see where my mind would take me. I just bought myself a 2021 Vision Planner that I'm hoping will help me get my thoughts a bit more flowing and organized again.
Could someone explain more of this Bullet Journal? I have seen them online, but don't really know much about them. Sounds like something that might be helpful? Thanks
Bullet Journal is a method of personal organization that is really flexible and mindful. It centers all of the various pieces of organization - scheduling, to-do lists, brainstorming, etc. - into one notebook and has some standard methods/tools for workflow. I'm doing a sort of modified version - it's intended to be very analog, but on my bad days I can't read my own handwriting, so I've done a digital version using (for now) a tool called Notion. I love watching videos of people preparing their bullet journals, though.The link Heath posted above is really helpful in explaining how to get started and the philosophy behind it: https://bulletjournal.com/
Also Jessica does a great 6 minute intro to it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hLnY9L1c-M which is where I stumbled across it.
For our next group gathering. I'm wondering if we might do a conversation about Self Time Management. Bullett Journals, Getting Things Done (GTD). Hipster PDAs and the like.
Trello's recently done an article on using it for Task Management. blog.trello.com/task-management-software
Voice Dream Reader is a tool for taking text and converting it to Audible Text.
This may be helpful for all sorts of folks. From tired eyes or driving to a number of neurodiverse situations, to blindness.
From time to time I use this tool for longer documents.
Here is a link to a discounted version in January 2021:
I've used a tool called todoist for a number of years.