Area ombudsmen work in various ways to investigate and handle concerns and complaints

Ombudsman. While the word may sound funny, the description of the job is very serious. An ombudsman is an official appointed to investigate people's complaints. It's a Swedish word, meaning representative or agent of the people.

There are basically three categories of ombudsmen, organizational, classical and long-term care (LTC).

Organizational or classical ombudsman operate a little differently than LTC ombudsmen, according to Bruce McAllister, executive director of Business Excellence Solutions and member of the board of directors of the International Ombudsmen Alliance.

There are basically four tenants by which organizational and classical ombudsmen operate.

First, ombudsmen work independently, only reporting to top management. Secondly, ombudsmen remain completely neutral.

"The ombudsman does not participate in legal action and won't testify or speak on behalf of people," Allister says.

Third, interaction with an ombudsman is completely confidential. Often they don't even keep written documentation of the people they see.

"The ombudsman won't even confirm or deny whether they have seen a particular individual," says Allister, who has been an ombudsman since 1995. The only information about visitors this type of ombudsman supplies to management would be demographics, like a breakdown of how many women or men had been seen.

The fourth tenant is informality. Rather than filing paperwork, ombudsmen help people solve their problems without taking formal action. "It's visitor driven, to get visitors to work problems out on their own," he says.

Allister says while most organizational or classical ombudsmen have offices, many of them aren't furnished with desks, just overstuffed chairs, to add to the informal feeling.

Organizational ombudsmen usually work for a company, while classical ombudsmen work in the legislature, or for a government or for municipality.

Sonia Rucker is the coordinator of institutional equity and diversity and Title IX coordinator at Southeast Missouri State University, where she also serves as the ombudsman.

"Ombudsman is the role of someone who is objective and neutral and who can assist faculty, staff members and students in any conflict mediation and resolving issues before they get to a point where any type of disciplinary action needs to be taken," Rucker says. "Or, if someone is thinking about filing a complaint, it's an opportunity for people to come together and have someone listen to both sides and come to some kind of compromise or reach common ground to get things smoothed out."

"It's basically someone who is a go-between to solve conflicts," Rucker continues.

While this is just one part of Rucker's job, she says some, larger universities, like her previous employer Cornell University, have full-time ombudsmen.

Occasionally, the problem is just a matter of communication.

"Sometimes, people just need to meet face-to-face and have someone help them and hear what the other person is saying to come to some type of resolution," Rucker says. Because of the confidentiality of the work, she wouldn't call a meeting unless the aggrieved party requested it.

While her job is primarily working with faculty and staff, sometimes she does work with students.

"If there's a situation where a faculty or staff member has been accused of some type of civil rights violation, discrimination or harassment, then that's something that would come through my office," Rucker says.

LTC ombudsmen operate in a different capacity. They are not entirely objective, in that they are advocates for people who live in licensed, long-term care facilities.

Jan McFerron is the region II long-term care ombudsman program director for Aging Matters, an area agency that works to provide services to enhance the safety, health and wellbeing of persons age 60 and older.

"In Missouri, we use a lot of volunteers. They are trained with a federal program and state training manual on specific topics," McFerron says.

For instance, what the role of an LTC ombudsman is, and what it is not. Other topics covered in training include familiarizing volunteers with the different types of LTC facilities and licensing, confidentiality and residents' rights.

"It is one of the most important things that we teach," McFerron says. "We are probably the only ones that advocate for the residents' rights, other than the nursing home inspectors. We are not regulatory, but we work closely with the inspectors."

Volunteers must pass a background check and sign confidentiality and program agreements.

LTC ombudsmen distribute residents' rights booklets and posters, which are printed by the Department of Health and Human Services.

"We teach problem solving," she says.

Newly trained volunteer LTC ombudsmen are each assigned to a nursing home.

"I set up a meeting between the nursing home administrator, the director of nursing, the social worker and I take the volunteer and we sit down to get to know one another," McFerron says.

Once the contact has been established, the volunteer goes to visit the nursing home two to four times a month to chat with residents.

"They are kind of a third set of eyes and ears if those residents have a concern or complaint that they want to share with the ombudsman," McFerron says.

The LTC ombudsmen are trained to ask residents if they want help solving problems, and if they indicate that they do the ombudsman goes to the staff to try to help resolve issues before they become larger problems.

All types of ombudsmen share the goal of helping people resolve issues without them escalating.

"The role of the ombudsman can be really important for any organization because you want to get a handle on things before they get to the level that there's a complaint filed," Rucker said.