Workshop teaches Natural Family Planning instructors

IC photo/Linda Petersen

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Andrea Dovel, in red, learns how to chart a woman's cycle during the Creighton Model Natural Family Planning workshop. Also shown are Nell Cline, Denise Winters and instructor Margaret P. Howard.

SALT LAKE CITY — Last week was busy for the three participants of an eight-day Creighton Model Natural Family Planning workshop sponsored by the Diocese of Salt Lake City’s Office of Family Life.

During the 60-hour workshop, which ran Sept. 17-24, the three women got a grounding in anatomy, human sexuality, the physiology of reproduction, abortion, contraception, fertility appreciation and Natural Family Planning methods. They also heard a presentation by Deacon Scott Dodge on Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical on the regulation of birth. The remaining time was dedicated to the specifics of the Creighton Model FertilityCare System and how to teach it.

Nell Cline, a member of Holy Family Parish in Ogden, Denise Winters of St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Salt Lake City and Andrea Dovel from St. Olaf’s in Bountiful are all proponents of Natural Family Planning.

Dovel and her husband have used the Creighton method themselves, and “I have fallen so much in love with it that I want to use it to teach others,” she said. “This system incorporates the sexuality of the couple, body and soul.”

Couples using NFP are “able to determine days of fertility and infertility that they can use if they decide to have a child, or not, at particular times in the cycle of the woman,” she said.

Cline, a certified lay ecclesial minister, undertook the NFP training as part of her ministry in the Church. “When I started my family, we were doing the calendar rhythm method (of NFP),” she said. “When I was looking at the literature, I was really interested. I wanted to know more about women’s health. I feel that if I knew more about NFP and women’s health, I probably would have made better decisions on some of the things I did through my life.”

Winters and her husband also have used the Creighton model. A physical therapist, Winters said she has been looking for another professional outlet after she retires from that field. Her interest in the NFP workshop was piqued after she saw a story about the workshop in this publication.

“This gives me some options for later for something that is still very meaningful, and I think it will be very rewarding to be able to support couples that are either trying to deal with infertility or those who aren’t ready to conceive but want to use a natural means and not put an artificial barrier of contraception in their relationship,” Winters said.

On the last day of the workshop, the participants were tested on their knowledge of the system. Each passed with flying colors and is now certified in the first part of the Creighton program, said Crystal Painter, director of the Office of Family Life.

The weeklong training will be followed by a practicum held remotely over several weeks. A second phase of the training will be offered in March, followed by another practicum.

Workshop instructors were Margaret P. Howard, MAM, CFCE and local physician Joseph Stanford, MD, CFCMC. The diocese partners with Stanford, who is affiliated with Intermountain Fertility Care Services, to train and maintain NFP practitioners.

The three women who attended the NFP workshop “are strong students and they are going to be great practitioners,” Painter said.

The diocese covered the cost of the workshop for all three participants. In return, they have committed to counseling engaged couples preparing for marriage in the diocese for a minimum of two years. Engaged couples who prepare for marriage in the diocese are required to take, at minimum, a one-hour introduction to NFP.

All of the participants said they plan to speak with their pastors about providing their services to parishioners and others once they graduate from the program.

“It’s important for us to make sure that we have practitioners trained that are available for all of the couples and men and women that come through that would like to and need to learn Natural Family Planning,” Painter said.

There is just a small group of NFP practitioners in Utah; the Hispanic community particularly needs this resource as there are currently no bilingual practitioners, she said, adding that she is hoping to get a bilingual program going in the future.