Forming new friendships as Pen Pals

In celebration of National Pen Pal Day on 1st June 2019, we’re sharing a great story from Crawley, where residents have been enjoying exchanging letters as part of our new pen pal scheme.

Eight people we support in Crawley have formed new friendships and built confidence through writing letters to people we support or colleagues elsewhere in Dimensions.

When assistant locality manager Lisa Odedra explained the pen pal scheme to the group, they were all very keen to get involved. Lisa supported them to write down their hobbies, interests and the things that are important to them – these interests would be used to find them the perfect pen pal!

After submitting the details to the volunteering team, each individual was matched up with a colleague or another person we support within Dimensions – and then the letter writing started!

There is a lot of excitement when someone receives a new letter and a lot of the pen pals enjoy sending artwork they have completed, which gives them a sense of pride about their work and sharing this with others.

The internal pen pal scheme has also enabled them to fulfill outcomes around developing and maintaining new relationships, which form part of Dimensions new support model, Activate.

Lisa said: “In this day and age, it is increasingly difficult to meet new friends in the local community. I have seen the confidence grow in certain people when they have received contact from a stranger who wants to be a new friend and it’s been a really rewarding programme to be involved with personally.”

If you are a Dimensions colleague or if you are supported by Dimensions and would like to have your very own pen pal get in touch with our volunteering team:

Email volunteering@dimensions-uk.org, call us on 0300 303 9162