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Establishing Best Practices

The Institute for Reproductive Health has made great strides in incorporating the Standard Days Method (SDM) and TwoDay Method (TDM) into state-of- the-art reproductive health norms and guidelines. The SDM has been incorporated into WHO documents, including

• Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use
• Selected Practice Recommendations for Contraceptive Use,
• Global Handbook for Family Planning Providers, and
• Decision-Making Tool for Family Planning Clients and Providers.

These documents are often used by UNFPA, USAID missions, Ministries of Health and NGOs as support and justification for offering the SDM. The TDM is mentioned in the medical eligibility document and will be included in the next edition of the Global Handbook and in subsequent editions of other documents.

To help organizations incorporate best practices on new Fertility Awareness-Based methods of family planning, the Institute has developed the following guides and simple tools:

• SDM Knowledge Improvement Kit helps maintain and improve provider competence in SDM counseling.
• SDM Implementation Guide describes the process for planning, implementing and evaluating SDM introduction.
• Technical Brief on SDM Barriers addresses obstacles to expanding SDM availability.
• Training programs and provider job aids support training of providers and service delivery of the SDM (resources/ SDM/provider/ training for service providers) and TDM.