My Honest Take on Becoming a FAM Instructor
Originally published Jan 2022, updated Feb 2026: This post reflects my original experience certifying as a fertility awareness educator through FEMM. Since writing it, I’ve gone on to teach hundreds of clients, mentor other educators, and co-found my own fertility awareness teacher training, Fertility Knowledge Collective. I’ve kept this post intact because it documents an important stage of my education, while adding context below about how my thinking, and the field, has evolved.
Back when I first learned fertility awareness, I was lucky enough to learn from an instructor. I remember the class vividly, It was a February morning in 2016, and about six of us were gathered in a conference room. I was taking part in a Serena class (a branch of symptothermal natural family planning), which was the only option I had to learn FAM locally.
I had a vague idea about how fertility awareness could be used for birth control, but as the class started I slowly learned how little I knew about fertility awareness and about even more, about my body. As we worked through the class material that morning, I was simultaneously becoming more overwhelmed and more excited. The question that kept popping into my mind was why weren’t more women being taught this vital information about their bodies?
I decided right then that I would become a FAM instructor.
I wanted to be able to teach FAM and integrate the knowledge I had gained about my body in my teaching. I wanted women and menstruators to be able to use FAM as a tool that was more than just for avoiding or achieving pregnancy. After a year and a half of charting my cycles and using the method for birth control, I began researching options on how to become a FAM instructor.
I had just finished my undergraduate degree and felt like I had the brain space, and the time, to complete the coursework of becoming an instructor. I chose FEMM (and a lot of people do for this reason) because it was affordable, online, and would take me a year to complete. I wish I could wholeheartedly recommend a training that was both secular, affordable, and a reasonable length of time. Right now, I don’t know of any that exist.
One of the first FEMM classes I taught in my cousin’s living room
I eventually settled on Fertility Education and Medical Management (FEMM) instructor training.
I loved that I would be able to complete the course in a reasonable amount of time, and still get the education around interpreting women and menstruators’ charts to identify hormone imbalances. FEMM teacher training prepares you to teach a model of fertility awareness education that is hormone-health oriented. The course focuses on hormone health education, identifying hormone imbalance in charts, teaching people how to chart their fertility biomarkers, and using the method to avoid pregnancy. FEMM is one of the more affordable certification routes that also takes a reasonable amount of time (the length of the coursework is 2 months, plus the time to complete practice teaching and the exam). Justisse & Grace of The Moon are incredibly in-depth programs, likened to a Masters-degree level of time and expertise.
I was able to do the course on my own pace. I began in September and completed my course work the next Spring, finally getting certified in June (10 months total). During that time I completed chart reviews and had many people reach out to me via FEMM, social media, and word of mouth.
What I wish I knew
Some downsides of FEMM is that their recommendation for hormonal imbalance or menstrual cycle irregularities is to refer them to medical management. Medical management are FEMM trained doctors who are able to interpret charts. The problem with this, is that in Canada, there are very few FEMM trained medical professionals making referrals to medical management quite useless. The majority of folks who find my courses experience some kind of interruption in regular menstrual cycles.
Another downside is that FEMM does not go as in depth other programs do. FEMM does give you all the tools you need to be an instructor and teach, while supplementing with your own information and education around holistic hormone healing.
FEMM training is a sympto-hormonal method, meaning that the method teaches LH testing and cervical mucus to identify the fertile window. Prior to taking the FEMM training, I was using the Symptothermal method for 2 years.
Had I not had the experience from taking a course in symptothermal charting, I would not have felt confident teaching BBT rules. Because I had this experience and support from an instructor to quickly build up my confidence in the beginning, it supported my ability to teach it later on.
Certifying in a method vs developing custom charting competence
One distinction I didn’t fully understand early on is the difference between certifying in a specific fertility awareness method and learning how to competently support custom charting approaches.
Certifying under a method umbrella means learning:
a defined set of biomarkers
a specific interpretation protocol
clear rules for identifying fertility
This structure can be incredibly helpful, especially early on.
However, real world charting often requires more than one lens.
Over time, I found that being able to integrate cervical mucus, basal body temperature, and LH testing intentionally — rather than rigidly following one protocol — was essential for supporting the kinds of clients I was actually working with.
This is not the same thing as casually mixing methods. Unsafe mixing often involves cherry picking rules without understanding the evidence behind them. Competent custom charting requires a deep understanding of why each biomarker works, when it’s reliable, and how to cross-check signs without increasing risk.
This distinction ultimately shaped the way I teach fertility awareness today.
What I understand now about certification quality and scope
When I first trained as a FAM instructor, I assumed that all fertility awareness certifications offered a similar level of depth, support, and clinical skills, just with different methods.
I now know that this isn’t the case.
The quality of fertility awareness certifications varies widely, not just in cost and length, but in:
how much real world chart complexity is covered
how non textbook cycles are handled
what kind of mentorship exists during certification
how much clinical reasoning is expected versus memorization
Many programs do an excellent job of teaching one strict method umbrella. Where educators often feel under prepared is when clients present with long cycles, PCOS, postpartum transitions, conflicting biomarkers, or charts that don’t resemble the textbook.
Tips for your teacher training
Recruit your practice clients early! As part of my training I was required to practice teach to 5 people. I would recommend putting a call-out to potential practice clients early. Your clients need to be not on hormonal birth control or breastfeeding, and willing to complete three charts each.
Supplement with your own teaching style and course materials when permitted by your certifying body. While I still use some of the FEMM teaching materials, the format of the course as well as the slides, videos, graphics and marketing materials are all my own. You can start curating a style of teaching, building your facilitation skills, as well as developing your teaching material early.
The other issue that should be mentioned, is that FEMM has received some flak for accepting funding from pro-life oriented funders. I have not looked super in depth, because I'm not familiar with the politics surrounding American non-profits and organizations such as these - but it does tell you about the leanings of FEMM.
Why I co-founded Fertility Knowledge Collective
After years of teaching clients and mentoring newer educators, I noticed a consistent gap between certification and confidence.
Educators were certified, sometimes multiple times, but still felt unsure when charts didn’t fit the textbook.
That’s why I co-founded Fertility Knowledge Collective, a secular fertility awareness teacher training that teaches a multi-symptom method with integrated cervical mucus, basal body temperature, and LH testing protocols.
The focus is on:
knowing the why behind protocols
reasoning through complexity
understanding when biomarkers are reliable or less reliable
supporting clients across the reproductive continuum
It exists for educators who want to know the why, not just the how.
Final thoughts
What I believe even more strongly now than when I first wrote this post is that no single certification prepares you for everything.
Becoming a skilled fertility awareness educator is an ongoing process. It involves continued education, mentorship, peer discussion, and a willingness to revise what you think you know as your experience deepens.
My FEMM training was an important part of my path, but it was only one part. What ultimately made me a confident educator was years of chart review, teaching, learning from other methods, and working with real people in real bodies.
That evolution is normal. And it’s something I now encourage in every educator I mentor.
Had I relied on my FEMM training alone to make me a well-rounded instructor, I would have been missing some key pieces. I gained so much from my training because I had a base knowledge of fertility awareness and the symptothermal method before I took it. I supplemented my FEMM learning with a ton of learning on the side, reading articles, books and listening to podcasts.
Becoming a FAM instructor is a wonderful learning experience, but after the training comes running a business, finding clients, charging money, and everything else that comes with working for yourself. This was the biggest learning curve for me, and has also been the most rewarding part of being a FAM instructor.