Everyone at The Jawa Group should be congratulated for having achieved Gold accreditation as an Investors in People organisation. It was evident from the survey results, through conversations with people and from spending time virtually with the organisation over the last three years, that Jawa Group has continually improved over the last three years as a place to work.  Moving from Silver to Gold is a natural progression and an external measure of the progress the Jawa Group is making as an employer. 

Building on the values and culture that the owning family set out to achieve many years ago, Jawa Group is now a genuinely great place to work for example, 94% of your people state that the organisation is a great place to work.

The deep-seated care provided to residents (known as patrons) is extended to the whole staff team. There is in place a clear strategy for the way forward for the organisation with ongoing communications on this, supported by a performance management and engaging culture. The Investors in People survey revealed that 96% of your people state that management communicates the vision. The strategy applied is demonstrating positive outcomes with 98% of your people stating that you have a positive impact on society, not only in relation to people’s experience and perception but also in relation to business performance.

Q1 – Back to basics. Tell us about you and your organisation!

I am Registrar of the Jawa Group, a specialist dementia care provider in south east London.  We are a family-owned and run service with a hands-on management team, and employ over 100 staff in a variety of roles giving service to just under 100 clients.  The company has been an accredited member of the Investors in People since 2014.

Q2 – In a nutshell, how does your organisation make work better? What is your WOW?

Family and community are at the heart of everything we do, embracing and empowering our patrons, their relatives and our team members.

Q3 – Where did your story begin, and where have you got to now? What are you most proud of?

Having begun their careers as registered mental health nurses, Roy and Sherine Jawaheer had already had many years’ experience of running NHS day hospitals when they opened a small care home for 14 residents.  Sharing a single room at the top of the house with their children, Rishi and Sonia, they lived together with the service users as an extended family.  Dedicated to providing genuinely person-centred specialist dementia care, the Jawa Group of homes has grown to become one of London’s leading care villages, occupying a pivotal role in the local community.  We are proud to be known in the healthcare sector for our professionalism in care.

We needed a Care Management System that would lift management of our patrons’ care away from the old days of handwritten, generic, ‘cut and pasted’ notes in a communication book, into a higher league of digital documentation and compliance evidence.  With most of the software on the market designed to a standard business model, there was nothing that met the specific requirements of the care home environment.   We considered ourselves ideally placed as hands-on service providers to develop and test a bespoke system. ‘Care Vision’ software is now fully operational not only at the Jawa Group but also in many other services in the UK and overseas.

As a pioneer in the UK of Namaste Care, an intervention for people with advanced dementia, the Jawa Group supports and operates the secretariat of Namaste Care International.  NCI is a non-profit membership organisation, providing training and resources for the global advancement of this therapy.

Q4 – What’s next?

We want to build on the lessons that the Covid-19 pandemic has taught the wider community, in terms of the valuable and vital role played by those working in social care.  Recruitment is an ongoing challenge, however we aim to encourage and nurture a new generation of carers.  They will be people who value themselves and in turn are valued by society, not stereotyped and merely ‘clapped for’ but put on the pedestal traditionally reserved for doctors and lawyers.  Carers make the world go round!

We aim to improve still further in communicating our core messages to our team members.

Q5 – How did Investors in People fit into this journey?

Investors in People gave us a framework for evaluating the way the organisation works, how management understand our team members and how management understands them.  Also to identify strengths and weaknesses, areas where we are special and goals to which we can aspire.  We were supported all the way by our practitioner who made the process painless and even enjoyable.

Q6 – What advice would you give other organisations starting their journey?

View Investors in People as an ongoing project, a work in progress that has real relevance to the company’s standards and success.  Make friends with your practitioner!

Q7 – PRACTITIONER QUESTION – What makes this organisation so special?

Please highlight the stand out areas of progress and how your support helped make it happen!