IOI | Second Ombuds Academy on challenging complaint behaviour was a big success!

On Wednesday, 29th of January 2025, the second Ombuds Academy took place. This event was organized and hosted by the Dutch National ombudsman. The Ombuds Academy is an IOI initiative that focuses on the employees of our institutes, rather than on the ombudsmen.

From all over Europe 22 participants from 18 different institutes gathered to talk about the topic of challenging complaint behaviour. They spoke about topics like the causes of challenging behaviour, and the instruments we have to deal with this behaviour. We also reflected on ourselves and our own role in relation to challenging behaviour; what are our levels of tolerance, how do we feel and act when someone is portraying challenging behaviour and how would we like to act? During one of the exercises we looked into this, by asking the participants to indicate with stickers which instruments they use and don't use. As the picture shows, we found both similarities and some differences, which was a good starting point to talk with each other about what works and doesn't work. Last but not least we talked about the importance of care for employees who have to deal with these kinds of behaviours.

There was a lot of recognition and common ground, and all the participants agreed that rather than a one day event, this is the starting point of an ongoing conversation and community.

Weren't you able to attend this event, but would you like more information about how the Dutch National ombudsman deals with challenging behaviour? Please reach out to us at training@nationaleombudsman.nl.

If you want to read more about ways to deal with challenging behaviour, we recommend reading the IOI Best Practice Paper on Dealing with challenging behaviour.

Source: The Office of the President of the IOI’s European Region and National Ombudsman of the Netherlands