A New Role: Where My Career and HIV Experience Collide

I have some great news that I would like to share with you all. I was promoted from program supervisor to senior program manager at the organization that I work. I am beyond ecstatic to take on this new role, and I am ready for more responsibility in my work environment.

In this new role, I will be overseeing 3 sexual health programs that all focus on HIV prevention and education through outreach, events, and collaborations. I will be leading a team of 9, and responsible for an entire site in South Los Angeles.

An overview of my career ladder

I have been working in the field of public health for 8 years now and have gradually moved my way up. I started off as a health educator where I would facilitate social support groups for gay, bisexual, and queer identified individuals.

Not long after I became a prevention training specialist, I was able to become a certified HIV test counselor for Los Angeles County. After spending some time in that role and further developing my skillset, I became an outreach coordinator.

As an outreach coordinator I performed both in-person and online engagement to recruit gay, bisexual, and queer identified men into HIV and STI testing, PrEP services, and sexual health workshops.

A little over a year ago I landed my first leadership role within public health as a program supervisor. As a supervisor I would oversee all day-to-day activities that the team was responsible for, which included HIV testing, outreach, events, and linkage into medical care. In that role I also assisted the senior program manager with things like budget, reports, fundraising, and overall representation of our organization.

New role and new opportunities

Now that I am the new senior program manager, I will be the individual responsible for all reports and documentation, as well as leading visits and audits from our funders. I will be making the decisions on budgets, and what my team can spend funds on for the program each year.

In this new role I will need to actively search for new funding opportunities in hopes of growing our site and future development of my team.

What most excites me about this new position is that I can lead my team the way that I have always wanted to by further developing each one of them. I can do now do this because I will have 2 supervisors who are able to handle the day-to-day activities, where I can focus on development and growth.

Thank YOU!

I want to also thank you all for reading this and providing me with a safe space to talk about not only my personal experiences, but also my work experience around HIV prevention and education.

This outlet gives me an opportunity to speak on the past work that I have done, and helps me adjust my mindset to facilitate new and creative ways to do the work that I love to do. I hope you all stay tuned for much more development for the organization and growth for my team and I.