WIRRAL CARE HOME RESIDENTS TRAVEL
THE GLOBE WITH POSTCARDS OF KINDNESS
Residents at a Wirral care home are travelling the world to
destinations near and far without even leaving the building.
Staff at The Hazelwell, a residential, nursing, palliative and
respite care home in Heswall, have joined a Facebook group
called Postcards of Kindness.
The project gives people going on holiday the chance to send
postcards to care home residents, leaving them wonderful
messages to read from across the globe.
Postcards of Kindness was set up in 2018 and has expanded this
year to include many care homes. The idea is to combat feelings
of loneliness and isolation and help older people to feel that there
is always somebody thinking of them by receiving postcards
from supporters of the project.
The Hazelwell’s care home manager, Sue Ball said: “Sending
postcards when on holiday has become increasingly rare with
everyone using their smartphone or social media to stay in touch
with friends and family back home. Thus, older people receive less
postcards than ever before too. In care settings, there is typically
very little personal mail to engage and entertain residents.
“Postcards of Kindness hope that anyone on their own travels will
think of someone in care and send a card to one of the settings
who have signed up. Encouraged by the sentiment that words,
anecdotes and the sharing of holiday moments could really
brighten someone’s day, so we felt that this would be something
our residents would love to be involved in at The Hazelwell.”
The Hazelwell’s care home activities assistant Brenda Newey,
an active Facebook user, came across Postcards of Kindness on
the social media site and said: “We are always looking at new
activities to join in with that will keep life interesting for our
residents.
“I really hope that we will get lots of cards from far off places to
share with everyone at The Hazelwell, enough to plot on a world
map and hopefully we can start to cover a wall with different
holiday destinations. We’ve already had several cards from
around the UK as well as one from New York!”
To contact the Hazelwell, call 0151 342 9654 or visit
www.thehazelwell.com.
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