By Kenneth Cloke,

As I write, it is now the year of the 60th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement (FSM) at U.C. Berkeley, in which I was an active participant (I am at the far right in the photo.)  It is also a time when free speech issues are again triggering campus conflicts, largely because of intense polarization over fighting in Gaza, and the mutually antagonistic activities of student supporters of Israel or Palestine.

Starting in the 1980’s, I began working as a mediator, conflict resolver, and dialogue facilitator, helping thousands of people and hundreds of organizations with vastly differing opinions, many mired in hatred and enmity, discover that they could somehow, unexpectedly, talk to each other, engage in open, honest, constructive dialogue, improve their understanding, and solve common problems.

By Christina Tay

Director of Services - Restorative Resolution 

Over the past few years, I have been thinking thematically about the tension between being dependable as a organizational ombuds and the unintended consequence of dependency developing with a user of the service.  In a previous role, I had attended a potential client’s senior leadership team meeting with our organization's business development manager and we were attending to promote the value and benefit of providing ombuds services. One of the senior leaders asked “What do you do if one of the staff becomes dependent on you as a practitioner or the service you are here to promote”? As we had a very limited amount of allocated time I responded “One of our key roles as a practitioner is to empower individuals through the sharing of knowledge and tools to move towards being able to manage the situations they are experiencing.”  It has been a few years since that question was posited and it is a topic that I have continued to consider.

One of the senior leaders asked “What do you do if one of the staff becomes dependent on you as a practitioner or the service you are here to promote”?

In a past role, I was working in an organization that employed a few thousand employees.  One of the requirements of the role was to continue to promote the service to the widest possible audience across the organization.  I started to observe that once some users of the service connected with the ombuds they were inclined to return for multiple individual sessions and while the subject may have slightly changed between sessions it did raise thoughts about the possibility of dependency.  On one hand, I see the absolute value of providing as much support as an individual requires but this has to be balanced against ensuring that there is sufficient time and energy available to an expanded base of users.