Naeema Hoosain

Emergent Strategy and Policy Development:
Analyze strategy and policy developments: contribute to the design process for specific events, prepare presentation materials, and co-facilitate as needed.
Compile policy responses in line with statutory plans: aid in developing a practical planning framework, gather information in the required reporting format, help draft the narrative using various source documents and inputs from key informants, compile feedback on drafts to refine the documents, and perform editing and proofreading to ensure drafts comply with mandatory content and formatting requirements.

Examples include: In July, 2024, our team together with the Director facilitated a 2-day senior management retreat using the metaphor of an ecosystem to reimagine the health system in our province. Day 1 focused on the "living elements" of an ecosystem, the organisation of the health system and how equilibrium is maintained. Participants explored how by design the health system becomes more household centric, more resilient, and ultimately thrives. Day 2 was all about the "non-living elements" of an ecosystem, the air, the light, the water, the soil and the climate. Participants explored the connecting, aligning, learning and actioning practices of the department in how it goes about co-creating system change.

In August, 2024, our team explored how thinking involved in non-partisan policy making could be enhanced with communication design. We used Ingrid Burkett's (GCSI 2023) framing of 'mouthset shift to mindset shift' to further deepen our communication design considerations in moving from adopting language to embodying language in the co-creation of systemic change.

Transversal Provincial Strategy and Policy Development:
Data Sourcing and Extraction: Identify internal and external data sources, source data from internal information systems such as Sinjani, Clinicom, Persal, etc., and assist in developing formats and tools to effectively gather the required information.
Primary Liaison for Key Informants: Monitor progress towards input deadlines, address queries from informants, and maintain meticulous records of queries and inputs received.
Data Collation: Compile a summary of the data received, highlighting potential information gaps, present data in formats conducive to analysis, assist in translating information into strategies, goals, and objectives, identify potential risks and suggest mitigation strategies, and recommend additional information considerations.
Strategy Support for Planning: Review statutory plans in accordance with budgetary processes, assist in drafting narratives from various source documents and inputs from key informants, gather feedback on drafts to refine the documents, and ensure drafts comply with mandatory content and formatting requirements.
Stakeholder Engagements: Organize engagements, coordinate logistics, prepare meeting documentation, take minutes, assist in compiling process reports, and manage task lists generated from engagements.

Management of the Sub-directorate: developing and negotiating job descriptions, performance, and development plans in consultation with staff. It includes reviewing performance quarterly, implementing and monitoring corrective measures, ensuring staff adherence to the organization's policies and procedures, and managing all related administrative tasks and deadlines.

• Provided support to the Director: HAST HIV/AIDS, STI & TB to enhance HIV/AIDS healthcare delivery across all HAST programs.
• Coordinated and supervised the development, promotion, implementation, and monitoring of operational and provincial rollout plans for all HIV and TB Prevention programs.
• Ensured timely coordination, compilation, and submission of catch-up plans, as well as monthly and annual Paediatric and Adolescent HIV reports to NDoH, including attendance at NDoH program meetings.
• Identified provincial training needs, facilitate and organize training programs to address these needs, and collaborate with NDoH, provincial PDC, and district supporting partners (DSPs) to align training with national standards.
• Developed and implemented monitoring and evaluation tools and control mechanisms for programs, such as those for TB, PrEP, HIVSS, STIs, Differentiated Models of Care (DMoC), and ART.
• Assisted in developing and maintaining a robust information system for the programs, for instance, enabling additional PHC facilities to utilize EDR WEB.
• Encouraged inter-sectoral collaboration and networking with all pertinent stakeholders, including USAID, PEPFAR, CDC, WHO, ANOVA & Aurum, FHI 360, CareWorks, CCT, CMT, CDC, DCAS, DCS, Higher Health, and Keth'Impilo,· NACOSA, WITS RHI, NHLS, NICD, JHPIEGO, J Gault, Pink Drive, SACTWU, URC, TB/HIV Care) and also facilitate the development of awareness and community programmes, e.g., arranging access to commodities for NGOs to access from DoH.
• Provided leadership and oversight to districts and DSPs assigned to work in primary health care facilities, hospitals, and communities.
• Collaborated with DSPs to ensure compliance with all DoH standards for case finding, linkage to care, and retention in care strategies, in accordance with the 90-90-90 strategy and work plan.
• Oversaw the implementation and maintenance of HTS/CLI quality improvement activities at both facility and community levels as required, ensuring compliance with Department of Health policies.
• Identified training needs at these levels and arranged the necessary logistics for such trainings.
• Participated in the Premier's priority projects and World AIDS Day activities, supporting districts with the "Building Healthy Communities" project, STI/Condom Week, and conducting radio interviews for STI/Condom Week.
• Updated project asset registers and inventories, communicated new or revised registers and elements via circulars, ensured timely distribution of stationery to districts, and updated elements on Sinjani in alignment with new or revised policies and PIDS.
• Identified research needs and participated in review and evaluation programs, such as the HSRC SABSSM IV Household Survey.
• Identified critical program stakeholders and establish working relationships with them.
• Managed and maintained functional relationships with all internal and external stakeholders, including the Department of Health and other partners.
• Ensured active staff participation in decision-making.
• Provided planning in terms of coordinated and calculated business plan inputs to ensure a technically sound budget for each line item, set program targets based on trends and nationally set targets, calculate DORA business plan indicators, and provide input into the annual monitoring and evaluation report.
• Knowledgeable about and understand the PFMA and procurement processes, serve as the WC provincial representative, and be a member of the Bid Evaluation Committee (BEC) and Bid Specifications Committee (BSC) for transversal term contracts facilitated by National Treasury.

Supported the Director: SPC

• Coordinated and facilitated the development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of programs within the Early and Late Life Course units.
• Addressed requests from parliament and journalists. Led, oversaw, and ensured quality control of all Conditional Grant (CG) Schedule and Business Plan (BP) activities, prepared route forms and signatures, and ensured timely submission of provincial catch-up/recovery plans, BPs, and quarterly reports (DORA, Mental Health, HPV, Covid-19, HPTDG, NSTG) to NDoH.
• Contributed to and helped draft the annual work plan, budget allocation letters, compilation of APERs, and circulars/memos that communicated alignment and/or set provincial targets, adjusted BPs, and drafted the final BP.
• Organized quarterly national and provincial meetings, presenting as required regarding all CG schedule activities.
• Engaged with key stakeholders such as NDoH, Province, Strategy Policy and Planning, Health Impact Assessment, and Information Management to identify gaps and ensure alignment and streamlining of annual APP and BP indicators & targets.
• Attended BMI sessions to monitor adherence to expenditure regarding under and overspending.
• Verified and signed off on monthly Gene X-pert invoices according to site requirements.
• Supervised two staff members and participated in the recruitment and selection for the G2G DD position.
• Managed auxiliary office services, including government motor transport, registry, asset transfer, and procurement.

• In 2011, I served as a PhD intern with the Medical Research Council. My PhD, entitled 'Developing Predictive Models for Depression and Risk-Taking Behaviour in PLWHAs: Focusing on Self-Concept, Implicative Dilemmas, and Internalised Stigma,' was conducted at the Psychiatry and Mental Health Unit of UCT.
• I also collaborated with the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation on a quantitative project called 'The Mental Health Determinants of Virological Failure in PLWHA.'
• Additionally, I worked as a consultant for UWC's School of Public Health on a qualitative research project named 'MPH Mapping in South African Schools of Public Health' and supervised two MPH students.

• I collaborated with a multi-sectoral team of researchers to forge a career in HIV prevention, as well as maternal, family, and child health (MFCH), which are key focus areas of HSRU.
• As a scientist, my responsibilities included disseminating knowledge through peer-reviewed articles and conference presentations, establishing a research niche via grant writing, managing projects, and mentoring junior staff and students.
• I contributed to two maternal and child health projects, which were part of the larger Good Start 3 Project in Umlazi, KZN.
• Additionally, I participated in the 'Options for Health' project and a school health initiative.
• My duties encompassed writing proposals, creating and implementing data collection tools and procedures, analyzing data both quantitatively and qualitatively, managing project finances and databases, performing literature reviews, and presenting findings at conferences.

• Oversaw administrative and research support in the Office of the Executive Scientist.
• Duties included managing the peer review processes for intramural units, assessing the quality of research submissions, selecting reviewers for proposals, compiling reviews for the Grants Committee Meeting, overseeing pre-ethics scientific reviews, offering scientific support to the Executive Scientist including scientific writing, report generation, and data management, participating in original research, enhancing personal research capabilities, and acquiring expertise in managing review processes and liaising with scientists.