Meet The Team
Stephen Stone – Chairman and Managing Director
Stephen has a natural connection with the older generations - he was raised by his Grandparents. He left school in 1966 and spent the following years supporting his relationship with Dawn and later their family, through a few employed positions, starting as a buyer (10yrs) with a food multi-national, later a house-builder and much later having been one of the first 25 people at Dyson Appliances Ltd, again as a buyer. In 1994, with his children through University and ‘flown the nest’, Stephen (and Dawn - his wife of 30-years) was able to really think about what they wanted from their lives, and subsequently, from their work… and it was to continue caring for people in some way.
In 1996 Stephen and Dawn purchased a small Residential Care Home in Dartmouth, Devon. They both took naturally to this caring role, applying their caring desires with their lifetime developed professional skills, and neither has looked back since. Stephen now frequently reminds us all just how much he loves his work.
Stephen, in his role as Chairman & Managing Director, is the figurehead for the Stonehaven Care Group. He is the gatekeeper of the standards to which all in the company aspire. His position is greatly facilitated by the quality of the team of people working with him, all of whom share a simple yet tremendously important (and sometimes too easily forsaken in the World) commodity - they care for, and about, people.
Dawn Stone – Director of Care
Dawn has been married to Stephen since she was 21-years old, with whom she began our family in 1974. Before that she had been in a ‘one girl amongst three brothers’ family… which took care and effort.
Dawn had before been mostly in the catering industry, but when she and Stephen purchased the first Residential Care Home in 1996 Dawn naturally assumed the role of ‘Care Home Manager’. Much akin to Stephen’s experience, Dawn took to this, like a duck to water. The position was a natural vent for her outgoing, caring nature (whilst bringing her into daily contact with care team members, residents and their families) with whom she was able to have occasional good old gossips!
As Stonehaven has developed, thus has Dawn’s role. Dawn now visits each Care Home at least twice a month to provide support and guidance where needed and to ensure that our rigorous standards are constantly met within each home, and to promote our team-training programmes.
Dawn’s role brings her into regular contact with CSCI (Regulatory body for the Care Industry) with whom she and Stonehaven have a very healthy and productive working relationship. As a company, Stonehaven Care Group welcomes input from the regulatory and inspection support bodies, as we know the service is improved and strengthened that way.
Ralphe Stone – Operations Director
Ralphe (Stephen and Dawn’s youngest son) concluded his University Degree at a time when Stonehaven was experiencing growth by results and recommendation and had identified both the potential for this growth to continue and the valuable social need to be served. He has a natural orderly nature – ‘A place for everything and everything in its place’ could have been invented for him. His Business and I.T. related Degree pre-disposed him perfectly to assume the Operations Director role in a fast-growing service.
Ralphe is responsible for; payroll, purchasing and repairs and renewals. Though his work is thus very much ‘background’ the positive impact he has upon the quality of care that the company provides is crucial. In his work Ralphe is able to take 90% of the routine administration tasks off of the hands of our Care Home Managers and their teams. This allows the Care Home Managers to focus most of their time and energy on ensuring and developing the quality of care in their home. Ralphe can be seen as the person who creates an environment whereby everybody else in the company can focus their energies purely on the care provided.
For 4½ years Ralphe lived in Primrose House, the company’s first Care Home, where he was on duty for the night-time shifts. Ralphe learned a great deal about hands-on care of the elderly in that time and has plenty of instinctive compassion to give. Ralphe’s experience is of great value to the company in ensuring that all decisions made at every level in the business are cross-referenced to one simple doctrine, ‘will this improve the lifestyle experience of our residents?’
Nathan Stone – Director of Services Development & Human Resources
Nathan is Stephen and Dawn’s eldest son. Having completed a Psychology degree at Leeds University Nathan then choose to pursue a career in retail through what was, at the time, a new and fairly small company, The Carphone Warehouse. Within a period of three and a half years Nathan had progressed to roles of Retail Operations Manager and then Area Sales Manager – responsible for the Oxford Street Stores in London.
The people-management skills, larger organisation efficiencies and customer-lead mind set that Nathan had developed with The Carphone Warehouse, and not least his closely relevant degree, increasingly had real relevance to the needs of Stonehaven as our company continued to shows signs of results and recommendation rapid growth. Having joined Stonehaven Care Group in May 2004, Nathan is involved in any aspect of the business that has an impact upon the quality of service experienced by; our residents, care-team members, social services, inspection and ‘the outside World’
Nathan’s role is clear – it is to apply his skills to help ensure that any Stonehaven care home is the best home for elderly people in need of Residential Care. Also to ensure that these people feel that Stonehaven Care Group is the best care provider for them to be with and for all to have easy access to information about our company and the service that we provide.
Nathan is delighted to now be using his earlier developed skills in a company with so vital a role in people’s lives. The focus in our company is clear in itself - and is clearly valued by every team member – it is ‘to enable our residents to achieve the best from their lives’.
