The majority of community centre roles at Jewish Care are at risk of redundancy as it looks to meet Covid-19 income losses and adhere to social distancing guidelines.

The London and south east of England based charity is reorganising how it delivers community support amid the pandemic. This includes its care for the elderly, those with disabilities as well as people with dementia.

Since the pandemic struck the charity has had to curtail face-to-face support offered through its community and day centres. Instead it has expanded its provision of meals on wheels, befriending and digital support, to continue to help communities while meeting social distancing guidelines.

“Given this current situation, we can now best serve our members by investing in and further enhancing the outreach programme that we have developed and accelerating the plans we were developing in our strategic review, “ said the charity.

“This will involve a reorganisation of our centres, to consolidate and build on the success of the outreach services already developed.  

“Regretfully, we are simply unable to sustain the full range of the centres’ staff that were needed to run the services when we could meet all our members in person. Unfortunately, this means that the majority of roles in the centres are at risk of redundancy as services are consolidated.”

Jewish Care estimates that the additional financial impact to the end of March 2021 for the charity could be as much as £7m.

It adds: “The wellbeing of our clients will always be a priority, and despite there being some changes to staffing structures, we will ensure that the vital services we have been able to provide including regular calls to clients are maintained and the needs of those we look after, continue to be met through our outreach and digital programmes, befriending and Meals on Wheels services. ”

The charity says that were possible staff facing redundancy will be offered the chance to be redeployed to alternative roles. It added: “We will, of course, support and assist all our staff as much we can with other job interviews.”

Jewish Care chair Jonathan Zenios added: “Jewish Care needs to continue to adapt and to change, to meet challenges as we find them but to always put the needs of those who need us most first. However difficult the decisions we face may be, we face them knowing that they will help us to meet those needs now and into the future.

“These are challenging times but responding to them quickly and thoughtfully ensures our long-term resilience. I also know that we can continue to count on the fantastic support of our thousands of volunteers and hugely generous supporters alongside the tremendous commitment of our workforce.”

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