Pen pals create new friendships for care home residents

Your Housing Group has been encouraging residents at two schemes in Middlewich and Lytham St Anne's put pen to paper, in a bid to help reduce social isolation.

The older persons pen pal scheme at Willowmere has seen residents bridge the gap by chatting through letters.

The initiative has brought the two communities together and reduced feelings of loneliness and isolation.

Linda Leeming, scheme manager at Clifton Gardens in Lytham came up with the idea as Covid restrictions stopped family visits and mixing, which many residents relied on to combat loneliness.

Just two weeks after the letter writing started, some residents have already started to forge firm friendships.

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Carole John at Willowmere and Shirley Clifton at Lytham have found great comfort in getting involved in the project.

“I joined the pen pal scheme because I was getting lonely due to lockdown,” said Shirley.

Carole John at Willowmere

“I have made a lovely pen-friend in Carole. We have exchanged letters and both have a lot in common.

"This is one of the best things I have ever decided to do. It's so nice, even exciting, waiting to get a letter full of good news. I hope to carry this friendship on for as long as I am able.”

Carole has also found the writing experience enjoyable, especially since she has found a new connection to her childhood.

“Shirley lives in Lytham St Annes, the place where I grew up, which pleasantly surprised me," said Carole. "It brought back a lot of good memories for me.

“I decided to join the scheme and am already enjoying the letters I get from Shirley and very much enjoy writing them in return. I would highly recommend the pen-pal scheme to tackle loneliness, especially with the lockdowns. I hope you enjoy it as much as me.”

Andy Hodson, older people’s service area manager at Your Housing Group, said: “The social restrictions during this pandemic have been hard on everyone, especially our older generation, many of whom have had to isolate for significant periods of time.

"The wellbeing of our residents is very important to us and seeing them losing that social interaction both with family and within the scheme setting has been hard.

" Linda’s idea to introduce pen pals was just brilliant and it is lovely to see residents benefiting from it already.”

Linda Leeming said: “It’s such a lovely thing to be able to connect our residents in this way and it is wonderful that it has had such a positive impact on both Carole and Shirley. I hope many more residents are able to benefit from it too.”