We believe in a world that is respectful and curious about the menstrual experience. 


Through the Foundations of Menstrual Education (FOME) course we aim to teach you how to confidently design and implement positive menstrual education programs in all settings.


NEXT COURSE STARTS SEPTEMBER 2024


We have now closed application to the April round of Foundations of Menstrual Cycle Education.


Please do join our Mailing List if you would like to keep in touch and be informed of when the next one will start and when booking opens.


Thanks for your interest! Hope to see you next time.


Welcome.

First, we'd like to share why we're here.


While numerous fabulous courses and resources are available to help people understand and connect with their own menstrual cycle, what we're offering through the FOME course is something different.


We are passionate about providing extensive understanding and tried-and-tested tools for people who want to help other people learn about the menstrual cycle and be empowered, uplifted and well-resourced by what they learn. Especially as modelling how to do menstrual education well has, to date, been rare or non-existent.

Here's a study to illustrate


Five thousand and seven young Australian women were asked “what was the most useful information about menstruation received during Health and Physical Education classes?”. The three responses that emerged all indicated serious limitations in the education received: ‘it was just biology’, ‘we got the cause but not the effect’ and ‘too little, too late’. Researchers say this approach potentially results in poor menstrual health literacy leading to long-term negative health consequences. 


Curry C., Ferfolja T. Holmes K., Parry, K., Sherry M. & Armour M. (2022) Menstrual health education in Australian schools, Curriculum Studies in Health and Physical Education


Our goal

...is to provide you with learning, practical tools, awareness and the means to express your passion to support your menstrual cycle learners - whether they are your students, staff, team, colleagues, community or family.


What will you get out of this? 

Simply put, through the Foundations of Menstrual Education course we will guide you through key subjects, reflections and processes, to provide you with the resources, understanding and skills you need to confidently deliver engaging, evidence-based menstrual education.

Why menstrual education?


Positive menstrual education is a valuable and seriously under-utilised way to improve life for everyone, across the board. Frankly, it’s a low hanging fruit ripe for picking! Through this course you will be able to share with your learners how to:

  • Create an informed and easeful environment for menstruators in schools, workplaces, communities and at home
  • Support respectful communication between those who menstruate and those who don’t
  • Make body literate choices about their menstrual health 
  • Practice and benefit from menstrual cycle awareness 
  • Connect with others to reduce isolation, pain and shame
  • Manage menstruation with comfort, ease and confidence.

The needs and settings of FOME participants vary immensely. So, during the course we will provide you with not just knowledge, but also the skills and attitude you need to adapt to any context, and within that, the ability to handle any moment or situation you and your learners find yourselves in.

Fundamentally, we aim to help you empower others so they can step into their best life, free of the impacts of menstrual shame or stigma. Not a small thing, really. 

What gets in the way?


Currently, for many people periods are difficult to talk about, and support and understanding through menstrual education is often limited.


A culture of menstrual shame, secrecy and concealment can discourage schools from scheduling, teachers from teaching and students from learning about their bodies.



Why does this matter?


This can set students up for a lifetime of resenting, and not trusting or understanding, their cyclical physiology.


And by not discussing menstrual wellbeing, we avoid talking about menstrual suffering, preventing people who menstruate from knowing what is normal and where and when they can get help for menstrual difficulties.


Menstrual shame can prevent communication and connection, and adds to suffering and shame through isolation.




Why you're here


If you're here, considering this course, then you likely share our passion for creating a world that is respectful and curious about the menstrual experience.


Or you may be here to increase your knowledge in an area you're interested in so you can confidently teach it to others.


We created this course to help walk you through understanding the many ways you can do this. And we hope that by the end, if you're not already, you'll be as excited about empowering menstrual education as we are!

Who are we?


The FOME teaching team join you from a rich trove of professional backgrounds and have worked with thousands of people teaching positive menstrual education in diverse settings. For more about the team go here.

In this course, we not only share our expertise but also our passion and the many benefits of learning from our hard-won insights, tips, tools and mistakes!

We're also thrilled to have on board some wonderful guest presenters, who through their specialist knowledge make valuable contributions to the course and your learning.

You will meet the team and guests during the welcome to the course, when we'll also explain how we will support you step by step.

A note on intersectionality & language


We’d like to take a moment to talk about how each person has their own journey with menstrual cycle education and awareness, and that layers of life situations and experiences directly impact how we learn and grow. Forms of discrimination and marginalisation can overlap, making it hard for people, in ways that others cannot always see or understand. 


We will address this directly in the course. For now, please know that we aim to offer a calm, sensible, practical and clear approach. We believe in equity, whether referring to sex and gender identity, sexuality, race, the effects of colonialism or differences in ability.


While we may not always get our language right we aim to be as inclusive as we can, be open to feedback and growth, and be kind to ourselves and others when we get it wrong - and most importantly we’re keen to continue to learn. 

We believe in a world that is respectful and curious about the menstrual experience. Through the Foundations of Menstrual Education [FOME] course we aim to teach you how to confidently design and implement positive menstrual education programs in all settings.

A word about age & stage


The focus of this course is on early and general menstrual education. The journey of perimenopause and menopause require their own deep exploration, and while we include a solid foundational context to increase your awareness and confidence in talking about these stages of menstrual life, they are not the primary focus of FOME. To further support your understanding of perimenopause and menopause we provide references and resources we highly recommend to help you explore this world of learning more thoroughly. 

What you’ll discover along the way 


Here’s the Foundations of Menstrual Education course in a broad sweep …


We start off looking at the experience of The menarche transition, or getting your first period. We’d like you to dive into the significance of this before inviting you to Explore your own story, so you can reflect on what happened for you and consider how that informs your way of working with others around menstruation. Don’t worry - if you’ve never had a menstrual cycle, it will still be helpful to work through this module. 


You’ll discover pretty quickly that we’re not just talking about the physical process of having a period, that said in Biology to be proud of, you’ll ride through a holistic journey of how the cycling body works, which we find endlessly fascinating!


Understanding cycle health will give you an edge when discussing the benefits of positive menstrual education and menstrual wellbeing. The module on How to grow a positive menstrual culture grew from our insights gleaned from years of providing menstrual education and working with learners experiencing a whole range of responses, from resistance and denial to acceptance and excitement. 


Once you’ve got all that under your belt, we’d like you to consider Best teaching methods for positive menstrual education and how to Create a safer, inclusive space. Both of these modules are practical and useful, with evidence-based techniques and tools to create the most effective environment for your participants. This is about maximising people’s learning in topics they may have never even spoken about before. 


We have made life easier for you with Design your menstrual education curriculum. You have a lot of power and responsibility when talking with others about the menstrual cycle. In this module we aim to give you peace of mind that you’ll be on the right track as you plan and deliver menstrual education. 


In Next steps we address how you can take on the world! This includes looking at key steps (small, big and important), how to manage resistance and where you can find ongoing support and inspiration.


In short, you’ll discover how to be an effective and resourceful positive menstrual educator. We’re passionate about its benefits and potential to change the world. We hope you will be too.



How does it work? Logistics.


The FOME course modules are on the Teachable platform and you will be able to access the content at times that suit you. A further very important part of the course is the 8 weeks of live online discussion sessions. During these sessions we’ll dive deep into the module/topic of the week to enrich, extend and enliven what you are learning in a precious and fertile sharing environment.


Once you have enrolled you will have access to the Welcome and further important information about the course. When the course starts you will have access to all the teaching materials and we will start our weekly Zoom discussion sessions.


After you have completed the course you will receive a beautiful certificate to commemorate and celebrate your participation in this important and valuable educational journey. 


We have several ways you can continue learning with us once you have completed the course, including training to deliver A Celebration Day for Girls workshops. We will also have options to access ongoing support should you need it. We will go into these inside the course.


Celebration Day for Girls Facilitator Training



The Foundations of Menstrual Education is the prerequisite and foundation for the Celebration Day for Girls Facilitator Training, wherever this is available, in person or online. 


For more information about Celebration Day for Girls and how to become a facilitator, as well as upcoming dates for this training see here.


Need support to sign up?


We are keen to make this work available to as many people as possible, and appreciate that many are working hard in challenging conditions with little funding to deliver much needed menstrual education where it is needed most. 


If you can pay the full price (which is what it costs to run the course) - thank you.

We have a payment plan so you can opt for this when you enrol to help smooth your budget.


WHEN REGISTRATION OPENS, if you need to apply for a discount or scholarship place, we have three different application options available: 

  1. Use the Individual Discount Form if you are an individual not aligned to any organisation who is unable to pay the full fee (please note - this is a discount on the full price, not the early bird)
  2. Use the Eligible Organisations Discount Form if you are involved in a not-for-profit organisation, publicly funded school or community group. The organisation will receive a special code that can be used ongoing for other volunteer or staff members of the organisation (please note - this will be a discount on the full price, not the early bird)
  3. Use the Outreach Program Full Scholarship form (NB This constitutes a full scholarship. Please note only one is awarded for each intake group. If a group of applicants apply for the scholarship from one organisation then it can be split between them.). Please use this option IF ALL the following applies:
  4. you are an individual working or volunteering for a not for profit organisation in a low to middle income country (see the Wellcome list for which countries are eligible), or with a vulnerable population, AND 
  5. you intend to train as a Celebration Day for Girls facilitator AND 
  6. you intend only to offer this as a CDG Outreach program (free to participants). 


Once you have completed your application form please email [email protected] to let us know & we will be in touch!