Dontay Williams yelled from the stage at the Sabathani Community Center: “When we break it down, what is mental illness?”
“Trauma!” she called out to someone in the audience.
“Depression!” another said.
“Chemical Imbalance!”
“Addiction!”
Williams went on to point out that mental illness is frequently stigmatized and misunderstood in the African-American community. She then asked the crowd, “Are you okay with that?”
“Yes!” several people responded.
He had come to South Minneapolis from Georgia to talk about an innovative program called the Confess Project that trains barbers serving black communities how to spot mental health issues in their clients and connect them to services. Dozens of Twin Cities hairdressers came to listen. The hope was that hairdressers could be trained to reach people with difficulties in a more authentic and close way.
“You all have key roles in this community … historically, barbers and hairstylists have been teachers, social ambassadors, relationship consultants and so much more,” Larry Tucker, a therapist, told the group.
He said he learned a lot about what it meant to be a man, to be part of the black community, when he was a kid in the barbershop.
Today, Tucker owns Kente Circle, a mental health agency in Minneapolis where barbers can direct clients struggling with mental health and chemical dependency issues.
Minneapolis City Council Speaker Andrea Jenkins recalled cutting her hair the day after Daunte Wright, a black man, was killed by a Brooklyn Center police officer. She walked in on a man and started talking about how Wright had been one of her best friends. People in the barbershop started talking about what happened.
“You could hear the pain, the anguish, the trauma in the voices of the brothers sharing their feelings, their ideas, and I thought, ‘Wow, this is an amazing space for people to have the opportunity to talk about their feelings without being criticized or stigmatized,'” Jenkins said. “And I think barbers, beauticians and barbers… are in a really unique position to work with people who deal with personal care.”
Jenkins said Project Confess is an important opportunity to reach people where they are and provide them with support they may not find elsewhere.
Suicide is the third leading cause of death for black men under the age of 19, and the Confess Project empowers barbers to build a culture of mental health for black boys, men, and their families.
Williams, executive director of the Confess Project, said he has taken his training for the nationally recognized program to 44 cities so far. The effort, he said, “has a mission to extend the lives of the black community, particularly children and their families.”
He noted that historically African-American patients have faced misdiagnosis, inadequate treatment and a lack of cultural understanding by the medical community. And few psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers are black.
Will Wallace, who has worked with at-risk youth in North Minneapolis, said he and his team went to about 50 barbershops to sign them up for the program “and every last one said, ‘We need this.'” he told her that he heard many stories of clients reeling from stress, poverty, the pandemic, homelessness.
Hairdressers are a trusted resource, she noted: People feel more comfortable talking to them instead of talking to a doctor.
Flint’e Smith owns a barbershop called Right Choice in Robbinsdale and serves as a local ambassador for the program. He has seen it all, he said, when it comes to mental health challenges: children reacting poorly to the COVID-19 shutdown and people struggling with suicidal thoughts and addictions.
Barbers can refer clients to black providers and support groups, and normalize the expression of their feelings.
“Advice,” he said, “is taken a little better from people who have been through it.”