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Over an hour, pick, choose, and explore bite-sized, interactive presentations on a variety of Ombuds topics relevant to practice, office setup, working with leadership, and system design.  Our presenters will simultaneously share short micro-learning sessions, allowing you to attend up to four sessions.

Session Topics

Tossing Pebbles or Stones: Change Management Bites for Ombuds, Ellen Miller

Explore the basics of change management principles and explore how you can use them in your ombuds practice, whether in support of your office, your organization, or your individual visitors.

Mindmapping, Amanda Dean

Learn a new technique for uncovering and untangling issues.

Generic Options, Particular Challenges, James Claxton

How can ombuds assist visitors who want to raise issues anonymously? In this session, we will consider how to use generic approaches effectively for individuals and groups. We will identify good practices and potential hazards of generic approaches and then apply what we discuss to a case study. Generic approaches can be a powerful tool, but they require careful management of the tension between providing actionable information and protecting the confidentiality of visitors.

Ombuds and Sustainability: An Unexplored Connection, Wiktoria Maslowska

Explore how ombuds’ work indirectly contributes to sustainability and how it is reflected in organization sustainability reports. Supported by quantitative data and real-life examples, this interactive session explores how to assess the impact ombuds have on sustainability to bolster their recognition and visibility within organizations.

Navigating Resource Challenges: Free and Low-Cost Resources for Your Ombuds Office, Michael Brochu

Free and low-cost resources are vital to strengthening your Organizational Ombuds Offices. This snack session delves into the importance of cost-effective solutions, equitable access, and sustainability, offering practical strategies for leveraging resources to enhance support, outreach, and presentation development within your organization when faced with a limited budget.

Ombuds Merit Badges, Meredith DeFraites

Join us for a craft break to celebrate your achievements in ombudsing by designing your own merit badges! Just bring yourself—if you need ideas or inspiration, your fellow ombuds can help bring out the creativity.

Disrupt Defensiveness by Checking Your R.A.T.E.S., Jenn Mahony

In this bite-sized session, learn where defensiveness comes from, how we each experience it, and what we can do to disrupt it (for ourselves and our visitors!)

Pulled it Out of a Hat, Greg Edens

Got questions about onboarding new staff? Stuck on how to report your work? Join your fellow ombuds for peer-to-peer learning through rapid-fire brainstorming as issues are randomly drawn from a hat. —we’ll preload the hat with suggested topics, but feel free to bring your own!

To Infinity and Beyond!, Allison Posner

Join us to talk through new marketing opportunities. Are you on X? On LinkedIn? Have a newsletter? Can’t seem to get anything done because of bureaucracy? Let’s talk through it all and walk away with new, actionable ideas.

Breaking Through the Gender Binary with the Genderbread Person: Supporting our non-gender-binary-conforming visitors and all visitors to be more fully themselves, Laurel Gordon and Heidi Stensby

This snack will teach participants about the overlapping – but different – concepts of gender identity, gender expression, biological sex, and sexual and romantic attraction.

Connecting Neurodiversity with Our Cultural Humility, Nadia Ferrara and Jennifer Swann

Cultural humility is a valuable tools.  If you have questions about it, our snack is for you! Join us in exploring cultural humility through self-reflection and self-evaluation. Participants will leave with a better sense of who they are, and how to allow others to bring their authentic sense of selves. Please reach out with any questions. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Ombuds Work, Members of IOA Research and Assessment Committee/Artificial Intelligence Working Group

The IOA Board has asked the Research and Assessment Committee to take the lead on helping members understand how they can effectively use AI, including considerations and pitfalls to pay attention to when using AI. A new Working Group within that Committee was recently established for that purpose, to support our community in collaborating on ways to navigate the risks and to use AI that will increase ombuds’ relevance and abilities-- please come talk with us about yourexperiences, concerns, and hopes for AI and ombudsing!

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