WORKSHOPS
Investigator and complaint handler workshops 2027
Build your investigative capability through practical workshops led by experienced practitioners.
Explore approaches, strengthen your skills and gain insights you can apply to your work.
TUESDAY 1 JUNE 2027
FULL DAY WORKSHOPS
9:00 am - 17:00 pm
Workshop details to be announced soon
HALF DAY WORKSHOPS
9:00 am - 12:30 pm & 13:30 pm - 17:00 pm
HALF DAY WORKSHOP - MORNING
Beyond Detection: Practitioner skills for AI-Assisted complaints and disputes
9:00 am - 12:30 pm
About the workshop
AI is now part of every stage of the complaint lifecycle. Stakeholders use it to find where to complain, draft submissions, build legal arguments and suggest outcomes. Most guidance focuses on spotting AI-assisted material. The harder work begins after you have spotted it. This is not just a technology issue. It is a process issue, a fairness issue and a trust issue, and it impacts practitioners who are already overloaded.
What you'll learn
This half-day workshop takes a psychosocial practitioner lens. Participants will work on building trust when correspondence feels manufactured, managing the cumulative load of high-volume and over-expanded material, balancing boundaries with procedural fairness, and recognising that for many vulnerable people AI improves access rather than signalling bad faith.
Drawing on training and case management support delivered to Ombudsman offices, tribunals, regulators and public sector complaint teams across Australia and New Zealand, participants leave with practical language and strategies.
Who should attend
Complaint handlers and dispute resolution practitioners
Those responding to correspondence from customers to stakeholders
Managers responsible for policy and practice
Workshop information
3.5 hours including morning tea break.
Lunch is included after the session at 12:30 pm.
Maximum of 32 participants
Meet the presenter
Shiv Martin is a leading mediator, conciliator, lawyer and dispute resolution consultant based in Brisbane, working with organisations across Australia and New Zealand. Her practice sits at the intersection of law, psychology-informed communication and public sector complaints handling, with a particular focus on what complex disputes ask of the practitioners managing them. Shiv designs and delivers conflict, complaints and conciliation training for regulatory, oversight and public sector bodies, including the NSW Ombudsman, the Australian Taxation Office, Administrative Review Tribunal, National Student Ombudsman, Land Access Ombudsman, and delivers accredited mediation and conciliation programs through Resolution Institute and SOCAP. She presented a full-day workshop on Dispute Resolution Microskills at the 14th National Investigations Symposium in 2025, which was highly rated by participants. Her current work focuses on how AI is reshaping complaints, correspondence and the emotional load carried by the people responding to them.
Further workshop details to be announced soon
HALF DAY WORKSHOP - AFTERNOON
Strategies for meeting the challenges of investigative report writing
13:30 pm - 17:00 pm
About the workshop
A workshop designed for investigators, investigative report writers and managers who review and approve investigation reports. It focuses on strategies for meeting the unique challenges of drafting investigation reports.
What you'll learn
This workshop is designed to help investigators to:
• Understand the key challenges unique to investigative report writing
• Understand how report planning can assist with identifying gaps in the evidence
• Understand how to formulate clear findings and write about the findings rather than about the investigative process
• Understand the tools for telling the story, such as data, timelines, images and quotes
• Understand how to structure coherent and persuasive arguments that allow the reader to link ideas and more easily follow the analysis
• Learn revising techniques.
Who should attend
Investigators
Managers who supervise and review investigation reports
Policy and research officers who write reports
Workshop information
3.5 hours including afternoon tea break.
Lunch is included prior the session at 12:30 pm.
Maximum of 32 participants
Meet the presenters
Sanya Silver is Deputy Ombudsman, Investigations at the NSW Ombudsman’s Office. She heads the branch that leads investigations through multi-disciplinary cross-office teams. Sanya has 20 years of experience across the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction conducting administrative investigations and leading teams of investigators and complaint handlers.
Lesya Bryndzia is the Investigation Report Editor at the Victorian Ombudsman’s office. She previously worked in reporting and communications at the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office and has a background in educational publishing. She has over 10 years’ experience writing and editing investigative reports for government.
Fiona Hudson is a Senior Investigations Analyst with the Victorian Ombudsman. She previously worked as a communication specialist with the Victorian Centre for Data Insights. She is a former investigative journalist and foreign correspondent with more than 20 years' experience writing and editing for major Australian news brands.
Further workshop details to be announced soon
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The NIS is a joint initiative of the NSW ICAC, the NSW Ombudsman and IPAA NSW
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