The SHALON Method™

A Community-Centered Approach to Advancing Black Maternal Health

The SHALON Method™ is a comprehensive initiative of Dr. Shalon’s Maternal Action Project (DSMap), designed to transform the conditions surrounding Black maternal health through a culturally grounded, community-driven approach. The SHALON method calls in systems, families, and communities to act with urgency and care.

Core Components of the SHALON Method™

1. SHALON Blueprint: Anti-Bias & Cultural Humility Training

A research-informed training program built for healthcare providers, social workers, and allied professionals.

  • Focus: Uncovering and addressing implicit bias, systemic inequities, and structural racism

  • Tools: Self-assessment via the Mirror Exercise, case-based learning, and reflective dialogue

  • Goal: Equip professionals with actionable skills to see patients as people first and build trust

2. CommuniTEA for Change

A healing-centered gathering that brings together families, advocates, providers, and policymakers.

  • Purpose: Reimagine maternal health through conversation, connection, and collective visioning

  • Audience: Intergenerational; includes youth, elders, and the broader community

  • Offerings: Story-sharing, healing spaces, policy dialogue, and resource mobilization

3. GRAMMS: Grandmothers Rallying Against Maternal Mortality Sisterhood

A program supporting women who’ve lost daughters, sisters, or loved ones due to pregnancy-related complications.

  • Support: Emotional wellness, peer community, and monthly workshops

  • Education: Legal preparedness, parenting guidance, advocacy tools

  • Advocacy: Empowering women to become system-changers and storytellers

4. Community-Based Research and Evaluation

In partnership with academic institutions, DSMap ensures that community voices shape and assess all SHALON Method™ activities.

  • Approach: Trauma-informed, equity-centered, participatory

  • Framework: Based on Alinsky’s theory of change

  • Objective: Measure the impact and refine interventions without making participants feel like test subjects

What Makes the SHALON Method™ Different

  • Built by and for Black women and families

  • Integrates grief work, healing, accountability, and advocacy

  • Refuses to pathologize or criminalize pain—instead, we humanize and organize