Hi Choice Forum - we’ve had an enquiry from a young person with a learning disability who wants to write to new pen pals. I have looked for disability pen pal organisations online, and have found a few, but I don’t want to recommend any unless I know they are verified and legitimate.
Are there any good disability pen pal organisations? I’d also like to know what other ways of introducing pen pals there are.
Thank you / diolch!
Kai, Learning Disability Wales
Well I love writing letters so I’d be their pen pal! I’m a trainer in East Sussex County Council adult social care and have a background in supporting people with learning disabilities. Another suggestion is to contact the ‘Involvement Matters Team’ in East Sussex - they are a group of people who do a lot of work to represent the views of people with a LD in East Sussex, including producing ‘There’s more to me than LD’ videos which can be found on YouTube. They are such a lovely group who deliver some training with me - one of them may be interested in having a pen-pal 
They can be emailed at ldpb@eastsussex.gov.uk
Hello Kai,
I realise this is several months old but I was wondering if you still were looking for pen pals?
I work in a small residential home and one of the ladies I support would like a pen-pal (old fashioned, not electronic)
Hope you are well.
Jenny
Hi Jedo, are you still looking for a pen pan?
Hello, im looking for someone that woukd like yo be a pen pal for my brother. He has LD and psychosis and is in a residential home. He is struggling with not being able to socialise which is what he enjoys the most and other than myself and an aunty we have no family.
Receiving letters from someone and having a project in responding would be nice for him.
Is anyone able and willing to do this?
Hi, where does your brother live?
If he lives in Wales we have Gig Buddy projects in some areas that are keeping people connected during the pandemic. There are Gig Buddy projects in England and Scotland as well.
Kai, Learning Disability Wales
Hi
We can probably help through Independent and Work Ready CIC take a look at our website
www.independentandworkready.co.uk and email us so we can arrange a Zoom.
Kind regards,
Karen
Hi,
Thank you for the info. I have had a look at the sites recommended and send the info to the manager of the house that he is living in.
I found some of the resources really useful and hope that they will encourage him to use them.
Thank you.
Hi there
We may have someone in our care home that would like to be your brother’s pen pal. I have forwarded your request to our home manager and asked her to come back to me asap.
In addition, we also run a day service which is offering Interactive Online Sessions at the moment. We have many parents who have recorded testimonials for us as the service has been a lifeline through this time. I have attached a testimonial for you to view and for more information you can look at our website www.dayspace.org. We offer all kinds of activities which really help our customers to socialise and interact with others.
If you need any further information, please let me know.
(Attachment Video Jack and Mum.mov is missing)
Hi
That would be great thank you.
Sistermum
Hello there Sistermum,
Such an brilliant idea to create a social platform for your brother!
Creating new friendships, sharing kindness and happiness is our focus point of our project.
I’m an Activities Facilitator for Surrey Choices, please look at our website: "https://www.surreychoices.com/." In a nutshell, our Company provides a range of support services to improve the independence, confidence and life skills of people with a range of disabilities and support needs,
Within our Company we’ve created our “Postcards of Kindness” project for customers in our hubs across Surrey to share their creations with each other, including the public. All communications flows through our project’s team as point of contact, to keep all personal information safe and secure (GDPR). I do have fabulous customers with great sense of humour that will be happy to share cards and letters with your brother.
Please do get in touch if your brother would like to explore this journey with us.
Kind regards,
Charlene
Hi, thank you for your reply. We are still looking for someone and this sounds great.
I have forwarded the link to his key worker to look at as the resources and online interaction look brilliant.
Thanks again and look forward to hearing from you when you hear back from the home manager.
Sistermum
Hi, Thank you for replying. We are still looking for something and this sounds great.
What do we need to do to move forward with this?
I will speak to the home he is in if there is something that they need to do to register.
Look forward to hearing from you again
Sistermum
Hi Sistermum,
We will be happy to share cards and creations with your brother, I’m sure there is potential for friendships to follow. Please email me directly on “charlene.hunt@surreychoices.com,” I will be happy to explain the process how we can move forward from here
To wrap this process up in a quick explanation, we mainly ask members from the public to post cards to the Daycentre, we log everything in and forward it to our customers who wanted to be part of this project. We also have groups that allocated online virtual sessions once a month as an activity to create a card and to post it through their Activity Facilitator to the individual in service or in public, all correspondence communicates through us on our platform.
Kind regards,
Charlene
Good morning Sistermum
I work for Surrey Choices and we support adults with learning disabilities . I was sent your correspondence about a pen pal for your brother . On a Tuesday morning i run a zoom session for 5 ladies where we do art, craft and are involved in the postcards of kindness scheme . We have sent individually decorated postcards to residential homes and individuals . We would like to be a pen pal for your brother . Please let me know if this is still possible .
Kind regards
Wendy Baldwin
28/1/21
