Caitlan Hendrickson
Caitlan Hendrickson brings more than 20 years of dispute resolution experience across government, higher education, international organizations, healthcare, courts, and nonprofit settings. A Certified Organizational Ombuds Practitioner fluent in English and Spanish, she helps individuals navigate workplace concerns, explore options, and address conflict constructively.
About Caitlan
Caitlan Hendrickson is a Certified Organizational Ombuds Practitioner with more than 20 years of dispute resolution experience and an exceptional record of service in large, complex, and multicultural organizations.
Her experience spans federal government, international organizations, higher education, healthcare, courts, and nonprofit settings. She has worked with employees, faculty, staff, leaders, teams, and other organizational stakeholders navigating workplace concerns, communication challenges, organizational change, and complex conflict.
Caitlan currently serves as University Ombudsperson at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where she provides an independent, confidential, impartial, and informal resource for members of the university community.
She also serves as a Conflict Resolution Advisor for the Office of the Ombudsman for United Nations Funds and Programmes, providing informal dispute resolution services and training to personnel around the world.
Fluent in English and Spanish, Caitlan helps make ombuds services accessible to people from different cultures, backgrounds, roles, and lived experiences.
Organizational Ombuds Experience
Caitlan has led ombuds and conflict resolution programs across higher education and the federal government while also providing conflict resolution services in a global international setting.
From 2021 to 2025, Caitlan led the Ombuds Office at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), supporting a diverse workforce of approximately 20,000 employees across every U.S. state and territory. Her work included supporting employees and teams serving communities before, during, and after disasters.
Before joining FEMA, Caitlan served as Director of the Office of the Ombuds at the University of Arizona from 2015 to 2021, providing services to a university community of more than 60,000 people. Prior to that role, she spent five years as Director of Conflict Resolution Services at the University of Oregon.
Today, Caitlan serves as University Ombudsperson at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga while continuing her work as a part-time Conflict Resolution Advisor for the Office of the Ombudsman for United Nations Funds and Programmes. Her experience across these settings gives her a deep understanding of complex organizational systems, diverse employee needs, organizational change, and cross-cultural workplace dynamics.
Approach
Caitlan provides a confidential, informal, impartial, and independent place for people to discuss workplace concerns, better understand their situation, explore available options, and determine how they would like to move forward.
Her approach combines cross-cultural communication, restorative practices, trauma-informed care, conflict coaching, mediation, facilitation, conflict transformation, and systems awareness. This range of experience allows her to assist with concerns involving workplace relationships, communication, inclusion, organizational change, leadership, conduct, and other sensitive or complex matters.
Caitlan meets people where they are, listens carefully, and helps them identify constructive paths that account for both individual needs and organizational realities.
In addition to supporting individuals, Caitlan understands the important role an organizational ombuds can play in identifying recurring themes and systemic concerns while protecting the confidentiality of those who use the resource.
Background
Caitlan has more than 15 years of experience leading dispute resolution and ombuds offices in large multicultural organizations. She has mediated more than 500 cases, trained hundreds of mediators, and supervised or mentored more than 100 mediation practitioners.
A member of the International Ombuds Association since 2011, Caitlan began her career as a mediator and restorative justice practitioner. Her work has included service to disadvantaged and marginalized communities, survivors of trauma, refugees, asylum seekers, and people navigating complex institutional systems.
Caitlan holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from the University of Oregon and a master's degree in Education from Northern Arizona University. She is currently pursuing a Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership at Northern Arizona University.
Her professional practice includes mediation, facilitation, coaching, restorative practices, conflict transformation, training, and organizational development.
