Policies
With the strong value of transparency fuelling us, we want to give you an opportunity to see and understand some of the tools we use to keep Riverwood operating in ways that fulfill the healthy Biblical mandates God has laid out for us.
The reality is that churches and church leaders are not immune to the problems of the world and we’ve put policies in place to provide protection and safety for congregants, volunteers and staff. Now, it would be nice to simply say that our policy is “love your neighbour as yourself”, or “always respect and never harm another”, but the reality is that these are inadequate and don’t name the potential dangers or consequences that come with
causing harm.
Riverwood has two policies that have been designed to bring absolute clarity on misconduct and are intended to send a very clear message to anyone who has been harmed by another or has done the harming!
The Abusive Conduct, Harassment,
and Violence Policy
This policy defines what abuse and harassment are, whether physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, spiritual, or financial and that any such behaviour will not be tolerated by congregants, volunteers or staff!
The Anti-Nepotism Policy
The purpose of the policy is to ensure that principles of merit, equity and fairness apply when making decisions regarding the employment hiring, compensation, performance management, promotion or demotion of employees. This policy helps us stay aware of the possibility or perception of collusion, favouritism, conflict of interest, breach of confidentiality or potential harm to the operations and ministry of Riverwood.
The Complaints Mechanism Policy
This policy is meant to answer the question, “How are complaints of abusive conduct, harassment, misconduct or violence to be reported and dealt with?”
To be clear, this policy isn’t intended to process complaints with day to day operations (ie: personal preferences or opinions), but rather about situations where someone may have violated their responsibility to lead Riverwood in ways that are healthy or has caused harm to another.
The easiest way to submit a complaint is by sending an email to our confidential mailbox, complaints@riverwood.cc. You can also bring forward a complaint by contacting any one of our staff. This could be done over the phone, in person, through email or in a written letter.
Although they can be difficult to investigate, Riverwood will also accept anonymous complaints if you are not comfortable with providing your name. You can expect that a committee of leaders will evaluate and investigate all complaints thoroughly and will address your complaint as quickly as possible.
Pastoral Distinction Policy
As a church, we’re committed to growing people, including our staff! But how does a person grow to be a pastor? Is becoming a pastor just a matter of changing their title or is there more to it? What is the process for someone to become a pastor? Our Pastoral Distinction Policy outlines the process we’ve put in place for ministry staff to be graduated to ‘pastor’!
Privacy Policy