Students’ Letters Spell Cheer at Local Care Home

Students from South Eastern Regional College (@S_ERC) have been ditching texts and emails for letters in a bid to spread some extra festive cheer at local care homes. 

Health and Social Care Lecturer, Rosemary Peters, said, 

“As part of our project-based learning (PBL), students from the Level 3 in Health and Social Care had developed Golden Memories, an activity club for older people. Unfortunately, we are unable to run the club this year which involved older people coming into the College for a cuppa and a chat and some activities – baking, arts and crafts – every Monday morning. So instead, the students decided that they would write letters to the usual club members as a means of keeping in touch. At this time of year the letters will be put in with little festive hampers purchased with a voucher kindly donated from Lidl Downpatrick which was secured by SERC’s Enterprise team.  

She added, “In addition, one of the students works at Kings Castle Care Home in Ardglass, she asked if the residents there would be interested in getting a letter from students and we were delighted to say they were happy to be involved in the project.” 

Jasmine Hannah, (from Downpatrick) a second-year student, from the Level 3 Health and Social Care course said,

“Having got to know the people who usually came along to Golden Memories, we recognised that not everyone would have access to the internet to be able to avail of video calls so we thought we would write letters to them. To be truthful, it was new to a lot of us, as we are all so used to texting, emailing, or communicating on social. To sit down and write a letter – which you knew might be looked forward to and hopefully brightening someone’s day – required a bit of effort on our part. 

She added, “It has been fun though. I never thought I would have a pen pal five miles up the road, and I certainly didn’t think a letter could be so important for someone in this day and age.”  

The Health and Social Care students are also working with children from St Nicolas Primary School in Ardglass, who will be livestreaming stories to the residents at Kings Castle Care Home.