"I started off in Maori Welfare, I'm now into caregiving work."
Ms Stutz came to social work in her fifties, after being made redundant in Wellington.
"I had left school when I was 14," she said. "I decided to go to UCOL, spent a year there, then went to Victoria University, then on to Otago for a masters."
She has retired, but still works because of "a love of humanity with all its foibles - including my own.
"It's very good to walk alongside people who, for whatever reason, at that time, require a bit of assistance.
"If I can go to uni at 52, after leaving school at 14, there's nothing to stop you."
She said the ANZASW serves a vital purpose in speaking out for change, since individual social workers are on employment contracts and not able to speak.