How we use evidence
Last reviewed for evidence and citation accuracy: August 20, 2026. See How We Use Evidence.
A field earns trust by labeling its claims. Every substantive page on this platform carries a page-level evidence note naming the register of truth its content draws on, and framework pages carry their register in their own headers. This page is the public policy behind that system.
The five registers
- Established evidence
- Findings supported by a substantial, replicated body of peer-reviewed research. Cited to verified sources. Held firmly, and still open to revision as science moves.
- Emerging research
- Findings from a small, recent, or not-yet-replicated research base. Reported at their actual strength, with their limits stated. Never inflated into consensus.
- Theoretical proposition
- Interpretations, models, and hypotheses, whether from the wider literature or from this platform. Called hypotheses, offered for testing, and welcome to be disproven.
- Lived-experience knowledge
- Knowledge that begins in mothers' own accounts and in practitioner experience. Taken seriously as knowledge, identified as its own register, and never dressed up as clinical evidence.
- Founder-created framework
- Original frameworks created by Jamilia Shani. Theoretical by definition until tested, clearly attributed, and never presented as validated clinical instruments unless and until validation research exists.
Standing commitments
No citation on this platform is fabricated. Where a claim awaits a verified scholarly source, the page says so with a placeholder rather than inventing one. Scientific consensus is never claimed where none exists. Hypotheses are labeled as hypotheses. Established scholars' work is credited by name, beginning on the Origins, Lineage, and Contributions page.
Scope and professional boundaries
Because this work intersects with psychology and psychiatry, its boundaries are explicit:
- This platform and its curriculum are educational, not diagnostic.
- Nothing here replaces clinical care, and nothing here should delay it.
- Developmental distress and psychiatric illness may coexist, and both deserve response.
- Non-pathologizing does not mean anti-diagnosis. The field's language commitments sharpen referral, never discourage it.
- Founder-created frameworks are not validated clinical instruments unless and until they are tested.
- Certifications do not authorize practice outside a learner's existing professional scope. A certificate adds a lens to a license; it is not a license.
How citations work on this site
Claims that reference specific scholarship, named researchers, or historical facts about the field are marked one of two ways:
- A footnote marker like [1] linking to an endnote at the bottom of the page, once the underlying source has been verified against a primary publication.
- A Source verification required marker, shown openly rather than hidden, on any claim that names a scholar, a date, or a specific finding that this platform has not yet verified against a primary source. This is not a footnote promising a citation is coming eventually with nothing said in the meantime — it is a visible flag that the claim is accurate to the best of current understanding but not yet independently confirmed.
Every source that has been verified, and every claim still awaiting verification, is tracked on the Bibliography page. Evidence-heavy pages carry a "last reviewed" date near the top, so you can see when a page's claims were most recently checked against this policy.
See the Bibliography → See the policy applied in the Framework Library →