Leo Louw Counsellor

Leonete’s experience covers a range of organisations, including working as a management consultant, being on staff in small and medium companies as well as working in very large corporate organisations. Settings have included the banking industry, the electricity supply industry, coaching organisations, pastoral care and not for profit companies. The Rand Afrikaans University in South Africa (now University of Johannesburg) sponsored the creation of a Trauma Counselling Centre (Crisis intervention for victims of violent crimes), and Leonete served on the steering committee with the university, chaired the volunteer committee and served as a trauma counsellor at the centre in the late 1990’s. Leo's interests are wide and varied, reflected in the range of experience she has gained across several disciplines, levels, organisation types and countries. This includes experience in consulting to organisations, working with multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary teams or individuals in the areas of coaching, training, accelerated development, facilitation, industrial relations, and leadership development. Leonete is passionate about people and has a deep desire to help them thrive and survive, creating a psychologically safe environment to heal. She considers her life’s work is to show love and compassion to the people she works with, whether that be as a coach, guide, advocate, or workplace consultant. She thrives in helping people discover the joy of diversity and the strength that it brings to teams and units, as well as assisting in promoting mentally healthy workplaces. Leonete’s experience includes phone (Careline) and crisis counselling, multi-cultural diversity training (including doing needs analyses & designing & facilitating training), extensive experience in multi-cultural situations (i.e., race, gender, LGBTIQ+, culture, religion, and other areas), organisational Change management (from needs analyses to designing & implementing interventions) and leadership development training. She has extensive experience in coaching and pastoral care, as a life celebrant (weddings and funerals) and in the provision of the Prepare/Enrich marriage couples coaching, all requiring high level written and oral interpersonal communication and time management and organisational skills. Leonete is also trained in educational kinesiology, crisis intervention and critical incident stress management (ICISF and CIMA) and Miltonian counselling techniques. Her participation in South Africa’s corporate Truth & Reconciliation Commission interventions for staff (for a very large organisation) and her design & facilitation of Equal Opportunity training for upskilling a range of staff from blue collar workers to office staff (winning a National Award), relate directly to her role in Safe Place.