The Advanced Fertility Awareness Practitioner Program
This accelerated program was born in response to the call to make a greater impact in the world by educating health-care providers about the potency of the Fertility Awareness Method for health, contraception, conception and support for life-transitions for their patients and clients.
If you are not a health-care practitioner, click here to learn about the two year teacher training program.
Menstrual & Reproductive health is your calling…
And you are dedicated to serve your patients better, but haven’t figured out what's missing in your practice.
You sincerely want to provide truly holistic, empowered cycle care to all your patients..
And you are deeply passionate about providing access to reproductive healthcare that is body literate, supports sexual sovereignty and respects all sexual choices.
the Advanced Fertility Awareness Practitioner Program was created for you.
Program Intentions:
To offer a training program for healthcare providers to integrate cycle charting education and interpretation into their practice and to become certified through The Well: School of Body Literacy and The Association of Fertility Awareness Professionals as Fertility Awareness Educators.
To offer those already working within a holistic healthcare practice to advance their skillset to include Body Literacy, Cycle Tracking and Sexual Sovereignty Practices.
To offer a condensed alternative to the 2 year Teacher Training Program designed for those with rigorous academic and clinical backgrounds in the healing arts.
An opportunity to study and collaborate with a small group of colleagues in an intimate online classroom setting.
The well’s Principles:
This program adheres to the same principles as the Teacher Training Program, including an emphasis on the values of :
Sovereign Women/People: We believe in the potential of an individual to be the expert of their own bodies and an equal partner in their healthcare. As practitioners this involves a humility and willingness to listen deeply to our clients. As women and people with a womb, this requires developing (or remembering) how to listen to our bodies and to nature, and learning how to trust them to guide us.
Collaborative Education: We are all teachers and we are all students. We educate each other by stepping forth with our personal and professional life experiences and wisdom.
Emotional Intelligence: This educational journey welcomes you to bring all of yourself. Over the time of study, you will be supported and encouraged to traverse not only an intellectual and professional journey but also an emotional and spiritual one if so desired.
Diversity: Each group is mindfully chosen to include participants from varying cultural, ethnic, economic and lifestyle backgrounds so our understanding of life can grow from exposure to difference.
Activism & Intersectionality: The program encourages awareness and attention to the intersection of environmental and social justice and promotes activism as a way to create change towards a healthier life for all.
Equitable Access: Scholarships and Payment plans are available to create access for participants of varying economic status and to make reparations for historical and systemic racism.
Admission Requirements:
You are a healthcare provider with 2+ years clinical experience, including the following expertise or specialties
Sexual/Reproductive Health
Nutrition and Lifestyle Choices for optimal health
Regardless of your credential or license, you prioritize offering a holistic, functional or ‘Wise Woman’ model of care
You are passionate about client empowerment, education & preventative, whole systems health care
You have a personal practice of cycle tracking and have charted using a sympto-thermal method for at least one year
You have taken The Well’s Body Literacy Class Series, offered live or via recording HERE.
You intend to actively use this education within your current practice and client base
You are dedicated to being gender inclusive and anti-racist or open to receiving training in these areas
Upon completion you will receive:
Skills to teach and interpret charts in a clinical setting and offer a body-literate and fertility-aware approach to healthcare.
Certification through The Well: School of Body Literacy
(Pending) Accreditation from AFAP
Curriculum Format:
6 months of weekly classes of 2+ hours each, including teacher and student lectures and discussion
Weekly home study, including video lectures, study questions, reading assignments, research projects and presentation preparation
3 month practicum including case studies, chart reviews, practice classes, a master thesis and/or activism project
An invitation to an optional wilderness retreat to deepen your relationship to the cycles of Earth and body
Curriculum Includes:
History of cycle tracking practices
Science and research on various cycle tracking methodologies
Comparative studies on practices currently available
Clinical uses of cycle tracking
Practice techniques for teaching ‘Cycle Mapping’ as taught by The Well
Rules for contraception
Utilizing the ‘contraceptive spectrum of options’, integrating cycle tracking with other methods
Using cycle tracking for conception
Discovery of pathologies via chart interpretation
Utilizing body literacy practices to support clients in phases of reproductive years
Menarche, Menopause, Coming off Hormones, Pre-conception, Postpartum
This program assumes applicant experience in the following areas:
(This material will not be explicit in the curriculum and further study options will be made available if necessary)
Anti-racism, Inclusivity and social justice in the healthcare system
Hxstory of Womxn’s health and Feminism in your culture
Contraceptive Options available to your clients
Reproductive/Sexual Anatomy and Physiology
STI’s and vaginal microbiome
Whole body root cause health as it relates to the endocrine system
The physiology of and cultural/emotional significance of menarche, pregnancy, postpartum, breastfeeding, pregnancy loss, infertility and menopause.
The physiology of and whole systems/root cause understanding of endocrine pathologies
Lifestyle and Diet support for endocrine function and
Environmental impacts and relation to endocrine health
How to support emunctaries and help clients with detox pathways
Skills in community networking and referring
What Graduates are Saying:
““I have really enjoyed taking part in the Fertility Awareness Practitioner Program offered by Sarah Bly and The Well. I am a Doctor of Traditional Naturopathy who has been in practice for over seven years. I’ve gone through years of schooling and have taken many courses, but the information and perspective that I have been picked up from this program is invaluable.
My knowledge of the fertility awareness method, hormones in general, and approaches to help my clients has deepened immensely. I finish this course feeling confident, inspired, and excited to use the information I’ve learned to help my clients and to spread the benefits of Fertility Awareness far and wide. Thank you, Sarah!””
Meet the Well Faculty:
Sarah BLY FAE
Founder of The Well
Sarah Bly is a Sexual Health and Fertility Awareness Educator with over twenty years of teaching experience. She originally trained as a homebirth midwife but found her passion in women’s body literacy and education. Sarah primarily works with health care practitioners promoting a client-led, self-awareness based model of integrative care. She also sees clients in her private practice and runs two teacher training programs to certify practitioners. She resides in southern Oregon where she mothers, farms, dances and lives in reverence to the natural world.
Jessa Youngs L.Ac. FAE
Jessa is a holistic health & energy medicine practitioner and cycle health educator dedicated to helping reclaim the inherent vitality & nourishment of the menstrual cycle by merging Chinese medicine with functional medicine and essential feminine wisdom. She blends these foundational perspectives with Fertility Awareness, Holistic Pelvic Care, Mayan Abdominal & Uterine Care, Western herbalism, yoni steaming and energy medicine in her clinical practice Embodied Wholeness, online and in Fort Collins, CO. She also provides FAM mentorship for graduating interns at the Well. You’ll often find her singing, dancing, gardening, cooking, gathering in sister circles and soaking in the beauty of the earth with her husband in their ‘78 VW bus.
2022-2023 Schedule:
Applications Due: January 7 2023
2023
January-February: Interviews & Enrollment
February 27th: Classes Begin
May: Wilderness Retreat (Optional)
November 20th: Course Completion & Graduation!
Class Dates: Mondays 9-12 PST
(tentative until each module is released)
Module One: February 27, March 6, 13, 20, 27, April 3
Module Two: April 24, May 1, 8, 15, 22, 29
Module Three: June 19, 26, July 3, 10, 17, 24
Module Four: August 14, 21, 28, September 4, 11, 18
Module Five: October 9, 16, 23, 30, November 6, 13
2023 Tuition: $8000
Payment Plans Available Upon Request
Clinical Applications of the Fertility Awareness Method
for health care practitioners
1.5 hour lecture including power-point plus discussion
Fertility Awareness Based Methods for tracking bio-markers of fertility and gauging hormonal health have too long been misunderstood and associated with ineffective, simplistic and/or religious models of family planning. This lecture is designed to educate healthcare practitioners about the current climate of fertility awareness, a self-care practice that benefits both practitioners and clients immensely. Come and learn how this charting practice can profoundly change a woman’s understanding of her body, her health care choices and her relationship to her fertility. As healthcare practitioners you will learn to use this valuable tool for collaborating with women to meet their fertility, health and family planning needs, decreasing use of exogenous hormones, more easily diagnose endocrine pathologies and be witness to a profound empowerment in your clients.
Understand the key differences between the currently available methodologies for learning a Fertility Awareness Based Method
Learn to navigate the complex terrain of contraceptive effectiveness ratings for evidence-based FABM practices.
Understand more deeply the cultural and personal obstacles to integration of this material as a basic self-care tool for girls and women in your practice
Learn what diagnostic tools are available from chart interpretation, utilizing case studies to do so
Learn to time labs and other diagnostic tests appropriately with a woman’s variable cycles
Discover tools to dramatically increase the speed and success of conception by interpreting subtle cycle signs and utilizing optimal intercourse timing
