Launch Event for New Parcel

Letterbox Green, our new parcel for secondary school children aged 11-13, has officially been launched at an event in Portcullis House, Westminster on Wednesday 7 September 2011.

Hosted by Edward Timpson MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Looked After Children, on behalf of Booktrust, the event featured guest speakers and Letterbox patrons Dame Jacqueline Wilson and Professor Sonia Jackson, OBE.

Dame Jacqueline Wilson said:

I can’t tell you how much it means to me to be a patron of the Letterbox Club. A child in care is often shuffled around many different homes, often with many changes of school so it’s no wonder that some of these kids find it hard going and stop trying hard with school work.

Sometimes looked-after children struggle a bit with their reading and don’t know what to choose for themselves in a bookshop or a library. That’s where the Letterbox Club parcels are so great, giving children the chance to feel that they’re special; that people care about them; that they can achieve great things educationally; that they have a fantastic future ahead. If my Tracy Beaker were real, she would have relished those parcels.

View a slideshow of the event on Flickr

Other speakers included author and editor, Tony Bradman, Chair of Trustees at the Siobhan Dowd Trust, which provided funding for the 2010 Letterbox Green pilot programme, Letterbox Club founder and Senior Lecturer at the University of Leicester School of Education, Rose Griffiths, and Booktrust CEO, Viv Bird.

Guests included Children's Commissioner for England, Maggie Atkinson, television producer and film-maker, David Akinsanya, authors Patrick Ness, Phil Earle and Steve Voake, and Children's Minister, Tim Loughton MP.

Letterbox Green was piloted in 11 local authorities across England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2010, with 60 children enrolled. An evaluation of this pilot has recently been published and shows evidence that children who took part made significant gains in reading and number.

In 2011, Letterbox Green was fully purchasable and over 935 children have been enrolled, across 47 local authorities in England and Wales.

Do you have children aged 11-13 in your area who would benefit? Please let us know.

Contact the Letterbox Club team on 020 8516 2993 or email Leanne Cobb