Stories from a diverse London
The Black barber shop: A new frontier of psychological wellbeing
The Black barber shop: A new frontier of psychological wellbeing

The Black barber shop: A new frontier of psychological wellbeing

On the surface, going to the barber is as normal as going to the shop. But for many Black and other ethnic minority communities, it can have a much deeper meaning. 

In 2015, two members of the Croydon-based youth counselling service Off The Record started documenting the relationship between Black barbers and their clients with the intention of raising mental health awareness among Black and ethnic minority communities. This is how their project Mind My Hair, Hear My Mind took off, involving barber shops across the South London area.

“When we were in those barbershops, sometimes we’d see almost, like, group therapy taking place from one person sharing their problem and everyone diving in with their own life experiences,” says Lee Townsend, the project photographer and engagement consultant at Off The Record.

For many years, barbershops have been recognised as places of cultural significance because of the sense of community they create by offering a non-judgemental space. 

Dr Karis Campion, a researcher at De Montfort University, recently wrote about the importance of Black barbershops. “First and foremost, the barbershop is a space to practise the art of Black hair styling. Furthermore, it’s one of a few places in the city that provides a space where honest and open conversations about Black identity, politics and community can take place outside of the external gaze.”

 Bertrand Augustin, one of the barbers involved in the project, believes that barbers can provide what people in the community often need – a listening ear. “The client is someone that you potentially see twice a month and it’s also a sort of unusual third party relationship,” he explains, “because we’re not family, we’re not really close friends either, therefore they are able to tell us things, and we don’t actually feel obliged to give advice. We literally just provide the listening and it’s quite natural for us to do so.”

Bertrand Augustin at his barber studio in South London (Photo: Bertrand Augustin)

Townsend believes this sense of trust is something that can also frequently be traced back to a generational tradition of going to the same barbershop for decades. 

“ Barbershops are one of the few industries where you’ll find that that service provider may have provided that service to more than one generation of the same family,” he says. 

“And I think that’s what allows that trust and that sense of confidence in the barber, not only to trust them with a cutthroat razor at your neck but also trust them with your feelings and emotions.”

Taboo issues for Black and ethnic minority peoples

And this is exactly what Mind My Hair, Hear My Mind is trying to show – that Black and other ethnic minority men tend to open up to their barbers about their mental health rather than referring directly to a counselling service. 

According to a 2016 study, the benefits of going to the barber go beyond the direct confidence boost that is commonly experienced after getting a haircut. And, when it comes to mental health, Black men specifically seem to be less keen on asking for help and receiving treatment. 

Before embarking on the project, Augustin already knew that his job as a barber was more than just cutting hair. “Now I run a private barbershop and it’s like a studio, so there’s only ever me and one client in there at a time, since I started cutting them in this private setting instead I learnt so much more about them.” 

Despite the barber’s abilities to provide comfort, Townsend is aware that the ultimate purpose of Mind My Hair, Hear My Mind is not to turn them into full-on therapists. “We don’t train the barbers to be counsellors because we don’t believe that the barbers are. What we train them to do is to be empathetic, to recognise the skills that they inherently have based on their profession, such as active listening.” 

The type of training Off The Record provides to all the barbershops involved aims to make sure that they are inclusive. For example, they try to deal with taboo topics amongst Black and other ethnic minority communities, such as homosexuality. They also provide clients with so-called referral cards, which display the contact numbers of different available services based on the type of problems the person has talked about. 

[the barbershop is] one of a few places in the city that provides a space where honest and open conversations about Black identity, politics and community can take place outside of the external gaze.

Dr Karis Campion

Simple questions for important answers

In the past, Off The Record has particularly  tried to improve mental health awareness among young people. Before the pandemic started, its South London-based Trim ‘N’ Grin project provided free haircuts to secondary school children and sixth form students while facilitating the conversation surrounding mental wellbeing. 

“We’re getting them haircuts and we ask them some simple questions such as ‘Do you have any worries about going back to school?’, ‘Are you concerned about your exams?’, and what we generate from those conversations allows us to know where their minds are and if they are aware of our services,” says Townsend. 

Off The Record is not the only organisation that promotes wellbeing projects within Black and ethnic minority communities with the help of barbershops. The Croydon BME Forum –  an umbrella organisation which supports the local voluntary sector – in collaboration with London South Bank University and Off The Record, set up a similar project by giving free blood pressure checks to barbers’ clients to detect the risk of hypertension, which is known to be higher among Black and ethnic minority communities.  

As for Mind My Hair, Hear My Mind, Augustin hopes that alongside mental health awareness, the project will also make people see barbershops in a different light.

“I think it’s about trying to re-establish barbers as pillars of the community so that people know that a barbershop can be like a safe haven to go to talk – as opposed to just a place where you get your haircut.” 

Bertrand talks in more detail about what the Mind My Hair, Hear My Mind project entails

(Header image: Bertrand Augustin)