It’s clear to us that one of the problems churches increasingly face is related to complaints or grievances. These are matters that don’t meet the threshold for reporting to the authorities (i.e. they are not illegal), but they still need to be taken seriously, and handled properly with openness and transparency.
That’s why FIEC has partnered with Christian Safeguarding Services to make this template Complaints Policy available to all churches. We think every church would be wise to adopt a policy like this to help if and when grievances are raised.
When a complaint has been received and acknowledged, a decision needs to be made about the nature of the complaint and how it will be handled. The flowchart included above will help you with this.
In this episode of the FIEC podcast, Phil Topham (FIEC Executive Director) and Adrian Reynolds (FIEC Head of National Ministries) are joined by Paul Harrison (Christian Safeguarding Services) to talk about dealing with complaints in church and the new Complaints Policy template itself.
NB. The template below is a locked Word document, which will allow you to complete specific fields. It's our aim to replace this soon with a regular document to give you maximum flexibility.
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