Funding & Collaboration
Help build the conditions a field requires.
Maternal Development is being proposed as an independent field devoted to the study of the mother as a developing human being.
Its foundational architecture has been developed independently by Jamilia Shani and currently includes a central definition, fifteen developmental domains, an eighteen-stage lifespan model, five evidence registers, founder-created frameworks, a terminology system, a proposed curriculum architecture, and a multidisciplinary research agenda.
This architecture establishes a beginning. It does not establish consensus.
A durable field requires more than an originating framework. It requires scholarship, research, critique, replication, revision, teaching, professional application, institutional memory, and meaningful participation from the people whose lives it seeks to understand.
Maternal Development is therefore entering a period of careful field-building.
Research collaboration inquiries open Curriculum & institutional partnerships in development Public giving not currently available
What has been built
The first phase of Maternal Development has focused on identifying and organizing a disciplinary center that has remained dispersed across existing bodies of knowledge. Current work includes:
- The central definition of Maternal Development
- Fifteen interacting domains of maternal development
- An eighteen-stage model spanning pre-motherhood through later maternal life
- A distinction between matrescence and continuing maternal development
- Five evidence registers for differentiating established evidence, emerging research, theoretical propositions, lived-experience knowledge, and founder-created frameworks
- A glossary of developing field terminology
- Founder-created frameworks for understanding maternal change
- A proposed thirty-course curriculum architecture, beginning with the Foundations Certificate
- A multidisciplinary research agenda
- Early professional-application concepts through Propartum Institute
- Mother-facing translation through Forpartum
These materials represent a founder-developed field proposal. They have not all undergone independent scholarly review, empirical testing, or clinical validation. Their current status must remain visible as the field develops.
Why collaboration matters
Maternal Development draws from many areas of knowledge, but it should not be built by collapsing those areas into a single unquestioned narrative.
The field needs collaborators who can examine its premises, identify omissions, test its claims, strengthen its methods, challenge its assumptions, and help determine where its proposed structures are useful—and where they require revision.
Collaboration is especially welcomed from people working in:
- Developmental psychology
- Maternal and perinatal mental health
- Neuroscience and maternal neuroplasticity
- Midwifery, obstetrics, nursing, and reproductive health
- Sociology and anthropology
- Motherhood Studies and Maternal Theory
- Black, Indigenous, decolonial, and global maternal scholarship
- Disability studies and neurodivergence
- Gender, sexuality, intimacy, and reproductive justice
- Family studies, caregiving, and intergenerational development
- Public health and health policy
- Economics, labor, and maternal poverty
- Gerontology, menopause, and later maternal life
- Research ethics and community-based participatory research
- Curriculum design, simulation, and professional education
- Archives, publishing, and knowledge preservation
Mothers must also participate as knowledge holders—not merely as research subjects, testimonials, or sources of unpaid emotional material.
Where funding permits, maternal participation should be compensated.
Current collaboration priorities
Scholarly review
Maternal Development is seeking scholars and subject-matter reviewers who can examine its foundational definitions, developmental domains, lifespan structure, terminology, and disciplinary positioning.
Review does not imply endorsement. Responsible disagreement, correction, and revision are part of field development.
Status: Seeking reviewers
Evidence and citation development
The field needs a rigorous foundational bibliography and claim-level evidence review across its substantive pages and frameworks.
This work includes locating primary sources, verifying citations, distinguishing levels of evidence, identifying unresolved questions, and preventing theoretical or founder-created material from being presented as established science.
Status: In development
Research partnerships
Maternal Development welcomes conversations with researchers and institutions interested in developing ethical studies around the mother’s biological, psychological, cognitive, relational, sexual, social, cultural, existential, economic, or spiritual development across the lifespan.
Potential research should begin with clearly defined questions and appropriate methods. The field’s proposed models should not be treated as validated instruments before they have been properly studied.
Status: Inquiries open
Maternal knowledge partnerships
The field seeks ways for mothers across different ages, identities, cultures, family structures, abilities, economic conditions, and stages of maternal life to shape its questions and challenge its assumptions.
Future maternal advisory structures should include transparent roles, informed consent, attribution where desired, privacy protections, and compensation whenever resources permit.
Status: Model in development
Professional application
Propartum Institute is a founder-developed application of Maternal Development focused on professional education, simulation, and practice translation.
Its purpose is to help professionals examine how the field may inform listening, documentation, relational practice, referral, continuity, and mother-centered support. Curriculum outlines and simulations are in development. Enrollment and certification are not currently open unless explicitly stated on an individual offering.
Status: Curriculum & simulations in development
Mother-facing translation
Forpartum translates selected insights from Maternal Development into mother-facing neuro-wellness experiences.
Forpartum does not own or define the field, and Maternal Development is not a marketing campaign for Forpartum. Any translation into mother-facing products must preserve evidence boundaries, avoid unsupported clinical claims, and distinguish reflection and education from diagnosis or treatment.
Status: Ongoing platform development
What funding would support
Funding would allow the next phase of Maternal Development to be built with greater rigor, participation, and accountability. Priority uses include:
- Independent scholarly and methodological review
- Citation verification and bibliography development
- Compensation for research, clinical, cultural, and community advisors
- Compensation for participating mothers and maternal knowledge holders
- Pilot research design and ethics preparation
- Research assistance and literature synthesis
- Editorial, archival, and publication infrastructure
- Development of accessible public scholarship
- Professional curriculum and simulation development through Propartum Institute
- Interdisciplinary roundtables and working groups
- Accessibility, translation, and multilingual development
- Secure digital infrastructure and long-term preservation
- Legal and intellectual-property guidance
- Administrative and operational support
- Founder capacity to continue the work without depending entirely on unpaid labor
Funding will not be used to manufacture the appearance of scientific consensus, clinical validation, accreditation, or institutional endorsement where these do not exist.
Funding pathways under consideration
Maternal Development is exploring forms of support that preserve the field’s intellectual independence and public purpose. Possible pathways include:
- Research grants
- Humanities and interdisciplinary field-building grants
- Maternal-health and public-health funding
- Fellowships and founder residencies
- Sponsored literature reviews or research initiatives
- Institutional partnerships
- University-affiliated working groups
- Philanthropic field-building support
- Sponsored public scholarship
- Professional-education revenue through Propartum Institute
- Mission-aligned underwriting for events, publications, or research infrastructure
No funder, sponsor, institution, or commercial partner should receive the authority to redefine the field, erase its founder, suppress findings, convert theoretical propositions into scientific claims, or reduce Maternal Development to a product campaign.
Specific funding arrangements will require written scopes, financial transparency, conflict-of-interest disclosure, appropriate legal guidance, and clear intellectual-property terms.
The founder-developed ecosystem
Maternal Development, Propartum Institute, and Forpartum have related but different functions.
Maternal Development explains the field
It holds the public definitions, disciplinary structure, evidence practices, terminology, lifespan model, and research questions.
Propartum Institute teaches professionals how to apply it
It develops professional education, simulations, research translation, and practice-facing tools. Revenue generated through Propartum may help support continued field development, subject to clear accounting and appropriate legal boundaries.
Forpartum translates it into mother-facing experiences
It creates maternal neuro-wellness experiences informed by the field while remaining distinct from the field itself.
Commercial activity within Propartum or Forpartum does not convert Maternal Development’s public terminology, scholarship, or disciplinary questions into advertising material. Each organization and application requires separate claims, responsibilities, records, and disclosures.
Intellectual stewardship
Collaboration is invited. Unattributed extraction is not.
Maternal Development must be open to critique, contribution, and development beyond its founder while preserving an accurate record of its intellectual history.
Participation in the field does not require agreement with every founder-created proposition. It does require:
- Accurate attribution
- Clear differentiation between inherited scholarship and founder-created work
- Respect for existing authors, traditions, and disciplinary lineages
- Transparent disclosure of conflicts and commercial interests
- No claim of validation without appropriate evidence
- No representation of proposed curricula as accredited or available when they are not
- No use of mothers’ knowledge without meaningful consent
- No removal of Jamilia Shani’s documented role in founding and initially structuring the field
The goal is not to prevent the field from changing. The goal is to ensure that change occurs transparently, ethically, and without historical erasure.
Who should inquire
Collaboration inquiries are welcomed from:
- Researchers and graduate students
- Scholars and academic departments
- Universities and research centers
- Maternal-health and public-health organizations
- Professional associations
- Midwives, doulas, nurses, therapists, psychologists, physicians, lactation professionals, and educators
- Black and Indigenous scholars and community knowledge holders
- Maternal advisory groups
- Editors, publishers, librarians, and archivists
- Foundations and philanthropic organizations
- Ethical technology and research partners
- Institutions interested in supporting working groups, pilot studies, or public scholarship
What to include in an inquiry
Please include:
- Your name, role, and organization, if applicable
- Your area of knowledge or practice
- The type of collaboration or support you are proposing
- The Maternal Development questions or materials most relevant to your interest
- The resources, funding, expertise, or institutional support available
- Your proposed timeline
- Any conflicts of interest or commercial objectives
- Whether you are requesting access to unpublished materials or founder-created frameworks
Thoughtful inquiries will be reviewed as capacity permits. An inquiry does not establish a partnership, endorsement, advisory appointment, or research affiliation. All formal relationships must be mutually agreed upon and documented.
Current funding status
Maternal Development has been developed independently and does not currently have a public donation system.
Please do not send money through informal channels or assume that a contribution is tax-deductible. Maternal Development is not presently representing itself as a nonprofit organization, charitable institution, university, accredited program, or grantmaking body.
Verified opportunities for sponsorship, grant support, commissioned work, institutional collaboration, or professional education will be described clearly before funds are accepted.
Public giving In preparation
Grant and sponsorship inquiries Open for discussion
Research collaboration inquiries Open
Institutional partnerships Under consideration
Professional enrollment Not yet open unless explicitly stated
Build with us—responsibly
The first architecture of Maternal Development was built independently. Its next phase should include many forms of knowledge, disciplined disagreement, careful research, and shared responsibility.
The invitation is not to declare the field finished.
The invitation is to help study, test, question, document, teach, and develop what becomes possible when the mother is finally approached as a developing human being.
To propose a research, review, funding, sponsorship, or institutional collaboration, write to hello@maternaldevelopment.org.
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