Red Balloons is a Teesside Community Organisation that has been created to help people combine the benefits of exercise and wellbeing for their mental health.
Red Balloons was born in 2017 as originally a blog about Claire Coulthard greatest passions, mental health and fitness. Claire says ‘It was somewhere I could make sense of what was going on in my head, be honest about myself and my life, post my achievements, goals, aims and desires. I had started volunteering with Mind around the same time and from their help an idea was born’.
Red Balloons is about peer support. Claires support others who have been affected by mental health, directly or indirectly, through the power of physical activity and a healthier lifestyle. It is about offering a service where any level of fitness is welcome, any interest in physical activity is celebrated. A place where you can discuss your mental health in a safe place. Where we celebrate everyone, no matter what their achievement.
Claire is very passionate about sport and physically activity and says ‘exercise pretty much saved my life, in more ways than one. Yes, I have lost weight over the last few years but when I was at my lowest, when I felt the world would be better off without me, it was exercise, running more accurately at the time that saved me. It was a coping technique, a management tool that I could use to boost my mood and confidence. Every achievement, every personal best, every challenge completed helped build me back up’.
Claire feels that physical activity is the most under utilised anti depressive there is out there. Red Balloons is committed to encouraging everyone to lead a physically and mentally healthier life. Let’s make mental health an everyday subject!
Tees Valley Sport have worked alongside Tees Valley Community Foundation to support Red Balloons develop funding bids and brokered links with local clubs and coaches. A sucessfully funding bid from Tees Valley Community Foundation Inactivity Fund resulted in the development of their ‘walk and talk’ and ‘run and rant’ programmes in local parks and TVS continue to promote Red Balloons work through their networks.
Red Balloons have also recently put out a big appeal for sports clothing and equipment. Claire says ‘one of the biggest barriers to starting exercise, is cost, more accurately, not being able to afford the right training gear. We have decided to open up a Sports Wear Bank in order to help those on low incomes get involved and be able to work towards a healthier lifestyle and have been amazed at the response to date.