Sooze’s comes from a background in health, working clinically as an Occupational Therapist for 12 years in Mental Health, and Neuro Rehabilitation. In her latter years working in the health sector, she started to grapple with the dilemmas of sending clients back into ‘unwell’ families and communities.   Through a range of experiences both here in New Zealand and overseas during this time, she began shifting her focus of practice from the dysfunction of the individual, to the wellbeing of individuals and of their communities.   This led her into the arena of Community Led Development where she practiced, and later studied in this area, receiving a Master of Professional Practice in Community Led Development (CLD) in 2015.

Since this time, Sooze has focussed her energy and time in the interest of developing wellbeing of communities through CLD practice, consulting to community groups to support best practice, strength coaching, and facilitating leadership development programmes for community leaders.

At the core of Sooze’s work is her belief that relationships are the starting point and foundation of all of our work, and that each individual has innate value and a unique part that they play.  She brings particular skills in creating spaces for groups of individuals to work collaboratively through her skills in facilitation, acting as a guardian of values, fostering creativity, and valuing the process and outcome equally.  Through her experience and skills she also brings an ability to see interconnections at all levels, between people, systems and information, and uses this to weave together often disparate individuals, sectors, and communities.

Sooze has been working collectively with Leadership Lab colleagues, in the LinC space since 2014.