Annual Conference

Creative Case Strategizing

This panel will present a case analysis from intake to resolution with a focus on generating options and creative resolutions.  Each office will explain how their case progressed, how they identified and analyzed problems incurred throughout the case, and how they chose further action in order to ensure an effective outcome.  The panelists will also consider the time, energy, and resources expended in their case.      

Session A- School Ombudsmen
Session B- Children’s Ombudsmen
Session C- Executive Ombudsmen

Session D- Legislative (Classical) Ombudsmen

Demonstrating Our Value

What is the impact and effect of an Ombudsman?  In these times of economic crisis, our offices are being asked to evaluate our work in terms of financial worth.  This session will provide ideas on showing how and where your office is saving a government agency or organization. 

Dealing with Difficult People – Interacting effectively with challenging complainants and respondents

Every ombudsman office faces challenges when working with complainants who are particularly aggressive, irate, abusive, or uncivil.  Others monopolize our time with too frequent contact or demands.  Additional challenges arise when helping the mentally ill and cognitively challenged members of our society. 

Similarly, working with respondents, the other side of the investigative equation, can be equally frustrating.  Each Ombudsman office has faced difficult respondents.  Agency representatives may be non-responsive, defensive, duplicitous or uncooperative.  They might mistakenly or purposely provide incorrect information.  They could inject politics into what should not be political.  Or perhaps they simply ignore recommendations.  Keeping communication productive in these circumstances is critical to working through such difficulties.

Working with real-life scenarios from our offices, this session will focus on how to not only get the facts for an investigation, but also how to keep the trust going in the communication when it is less than ideal circumstances.   We will work on skill-building to better cope with difficult parties and consider the merits of listening and acknowledging feelings against fact-finding and authoritarian approaches.  When we are talking about angry and difficult people, a foundation of trust may be eroded if the wrong path is chosen.  Building listening skills, screening for mental illness, recognizing clients' face-saving needs, and other measures can mitigate the escalation of conflict and improve communication and cooperation.

Federal Ombudsman 

A panel of Federal Ombudsmen will speak about the various roles of ombudsmen in the Federal sector.

Gathering Information Through Interviews 

This session covers the skills used to gather information through interviews that do not produce a formal record of interview in the legal sense.  Interviews may be conducted over the telephone or in person and occur for a range of reasons.  The session includes preparing for the interview, conducting the interview, and reviewing and analyzing interview information. 

Generation X, Y, Z 

This session will examine the four generations that coexist in our workplace and communities and compare their characteristics and values to better understand our differences and commonalities. Knowing where the Veterans or Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y or Millenials come from, where they want to go, and how they view systems like government will enable you to better understand and respond to them.  The presenter will provide simple and concrete ways to improve your relationship with each generation, both internally within the workplace and externally in your interaction with complainants and respondents.

Ombudsman Offices and Elected or Appointing Officials: Short term or long lived relationship?

A panel will explore the relationship between Ombudsmen and elected officials or those that appoint them, including the challenges of re-appointment and how to operate within a political context while maintaining independence and impartiality. 

Ombudsman Rationale to Decline or Discontinue Investigations

There are various reasons why an Ombudsman can and will decline to investigate a complaint, including case volume, jurisdiction, and projected expense.  This session will examine how to exercise this basic principle of our work and how to offer alternatives when appropriate.  Oftentimes citizens benefit from simple coaching or empowerment tools that an Ombudsman can provide to complainants. We will also look at the many factors that might force an Ombudsman to call a halt to an investigation of complaints in mid-stream.           

Ombudsman and Vulnerable Populations

USOA Standards

A review of the governmental Ombudsman standards established by the USOA Board in 2003 and how these standards can be used by current offices to measure effectiveness, performance, and plans for improvement.                                                

The Values and Principles of Public Service

This session covers the ethical conduct required of Ombudsman offices and our responsibility to promote ethical conduct in other.  It includes contributing to an ethical public sector environment, participating in ethical decision making, and demonstrating our credibility.  In practice, ethical conduct is demonstrated in the context of investigative activities such as applying government policies, delivering services to citizens, using resources, conducting interview, presenting evidence, etc. 

For more information about the 2010 annual convention, you can contact the following individuals:

1)  Robin Matsunaga (USOA Conferences & Training Committee Chair) @ 808-587-0770

robin.matsunaga@ombudsman.hawaii.gov

2)  Diane Welborn ( 20109 Conference Host and Sub-committee Co-chair) @ 937-223-4613

welborn@dayton-ombudsman.org

3)  Alda Helvey (USOA Business Manager) @ 515-225-2323

usoa@assoc-serv.com