Striding Forwards has been setup by Dean Coombes after receiving news 3 of his friends took their own lives and it moved him to help people away from suicidal thoughts.
Here is Dean pictured below.
Striding Forwards will help people with their mental health, reducing anxiety and increasing confidence in people.
Dean is a Time to Change Wales champion and is helping people in Wales see that people with mental health conditions have a lot to offer the country, and is telling his story
to inspire people to go on and do great things no matter how big or how small.
Not only is Dean campaigning with Time to Change Wales to end mental health stigma and discrimination, but he is also running workshops to help people with anxiety and
confidence problems, so that they can move away from despairing suicidal thoughts.
Dean himself attended the anxiety workshop that he delivers for Striding Forwards in 2014. After attending the workshop his work performance sky rocketed,
this was because he learned how to manage his anxiety and increased his confidence.
Before we get into Dean's story, here is Dean introducing himself and has a message to inspire people that they can do great things in the future even if they have a mental health
condition.
Since Dean was 12 to 13 years old he battled with suicidal thoughts. Dean has spent over 20 years searching for better mental health and believe he has found ways to manage his
mental health that enabled him to go on and achieve good things. Because Dean used our workshop to understand what anxiety is this boosted his confidence that led to explosive results.
Dean challenged his mental health just over 10 years ago to get the best out of it. In 2013 he setup a website called Awesome Cardiff and decided to look at life more positively
and promoted Cardiff's events to the world through social media, the first year was a disaster because of his anxiety levels, however in 2014 Dean attended the anxiety management
workshop designed by Jocelyn Duncan. The workshop taught him what anxiety was and how to manage negative emotions, his confidence increased hugely after attending the workshop.
Dean for the next two years went on to produce some of his best work, and he puts it down to the techniques he learned in the workshop that led him to increased confidence
and reduced anxiety levels.
The workshop proved to Dean he could manage his mental health and do good things for the environment around him and has plenty of examples to give.
Twitter came knocking
When Dean defiantly said no to suicidal thoughts and carried out positive work with his new found confidence, even the like's of Twitter found his work, yes you
heard this right, TWITTER. Here is a tweet put out by Twitter themselves promoting the Awesome Cardiff Twitter platform as one of the top ten to follow in Cardiff
next to the likes of Cardiff Castle.
Dean's photography skills improved
Here are six photo's Dean took that helped promote Cardiff events to local audiences as well as people in countries all over the world.
Dean's photos were used all over Cardiff. They were printed on the side of buses, used on websites, displayed in Cardiff Castle tourism media, as well as used by Cardiff Council to
promote their Cardiff Festival events. Here are examples.
Other achievements included:
1) The Awesome Cardiff social media platforms were accredited by the Welsh Rugby Union.
2) Awesome Cardiff carried out work for Cardiff Council and the Cardiff Harbour Authority.
3) Awesome Cardiff carried out work for BAFTA.
Here are all the brands Dean pushed digital content for achieving great results for individual companies and the cities tourism goals.
Our workshop teaches people all about anxiety and how to manage it. We teach people techniques that will help improve mental health and peoples confidence just like it did for Dean.
When confidence increases life will feel better and you will be able to accomplish many good things that can positively shape the environment around you.
Here is an infographic that summarises the work Dean did through Awesome Cardiff helping Cardiff achieve it's tourism goals.
Our goal here at Striding Forwards
Striding Forwards has been setup to help people with their anxiety and to help build confidence levels. We are available for motivational speaking, to deliver anxiety and confidence building
workshops and to deliver mental health anti-stigma presentations alongside Time to Change Wales.
For information on our next workshops, mental health anti-stigma talks and one on one peer support use the button below to get in touch.
