Residents at two Perthshire care homes are making new connections through old-fashioned means as they face up to the challenges of Coronavirus.

Organisers at Balhousie Rumbling Bridge and Balhouise Dalnaglar care homes are hoping that connecting residents with each other through the introduction of a ‘pen-pal’ writing club will start up some lovely friendships between the homes.

It will offer residents another way to communicate with others while precautionary measures are in place during the Coronavirus epidemic, which makes building friendships more challenging.

“Some of our service users have not had a letter through the post in years,” said Carol Stillie, Activities Coordinator at Balhousie Rumbling Bridge care home. “We had great fun writing the letters and it triggered lots of memories and conversation.”

With the first letters proving a great success, Carol, along with Hope Leslie from the Balhousie Dalnaglar Activities team in Crieff, are planning to continue enabling residents to write to each other regularly with a view to physically bringing the pen-pals together to meet in person in the future when it is safe to do so.

Other care homes in the Group are also planning to introduce ‘Pen-pal’ writing clubs in the coming weeks to help build more cross-home friendships.