How many times a year do you go for a haircut?
If you go to a barbershop, it may be something like a dozen visits. A dozen haircuts equals a dozen conversations you will have with the same person cutting your hair – if you like going to the same barber each time, that is.
Twelve conversations mean twelve opportunities to talk to someone about how you’re doing, offload, or even celebrate new milestones in your life.
That unappreciated relationship has formed the basis of a national mental health and suicide prevention scheme that teaches barbers to notice signs of struggle in their clients and develops confidence to have supportive conversations.
Coined BarberTalk, the training was founded by award-winning barber, author, and educator Tom Chapman, who wants to promote a non-clinical way of improving mental health.
During a visit to Jersey this week, Mr Chapman discussed his journey launching the initiative and the impact it has had around the country.
It is well-established that men are more vulnerable to suicide than women. In Jersey, 68% of all suicides recorded between 2012 and 2021 involved males.
Organised by the Danny Cram Foundation, which was launched in honour of a 25-year-old Islander who took his own life earlier this year, more than 30 local barbers from various communities met Tom at St Paul’s Centre to undertake the free BarberTalk training.
In simple terms, the education shows how barbers can recognise signs of mental health struggles, how to ask effective questions, the importance of listening without judgement, and signposting where people can go for help.
The aim is to catch signs of struggle early to prevent suicide and support those people that mental health services may not know about.
“The whole point of the training is to provide as many opportunities in the community to reach the unreachable,” Tom said.
“Men that are suffering and not seeking help and unknown to mental health services, are probably getting a haircut at some point.”
“This is about seizing that opportunity to bridge the gap between the communities that we serve as barbers and the professional resources available.”
Since launching the scheme, its success has been so impactful with men that the training has now expanded to hairdressers and beauticians to similarly prevent suicide amongst women and girls.
The whole journey began, Tom explained, around ten years ago as he was busy travelling around the world doing celebrity trims and barbering shows, when out of the blue a close friend took his own life.
Having never been affected by suicide or poor mental health in his circle previously, Tom said instantly he was “taken aback”.
“I wanted to do something about it,” he said.
At first, he gathered his prominent barber connections to create a men’s ‘look book’ of hairstyles with mental health messaging and promoting the cause in his salon.
As he heard about the positive impacts his efforts were having and how many people were affected by suicide, he knew he had to expand his operation.
“At after parties or post-shows, people would message me or come up to me and talk not about my haircuts but about mental health and tell me what they had been through, or if they’d lost a friend to suicide,” Tom explained.
“I realised quite quickly that using the vehicle of a haircut to talk about mental health was very valuable, and it was making an impact in my barber’s chair.”
Tom said he truly understood what a difference he was making when a friend of his explained how he had saved his life.
“One of my friends was suicidal when he came to me for a haircut. Though I didn’t know at the time,” he explained.
“But I talked about what we were doing [with mental health] and I explained how it’s okay for men to feel that way and how through the work we had found some amazing charities that men could go to.
“He later told me, post that haircut he had decided he wanted to end his life but before going through with it, he thought about the conversation we’d had in the barber chair. That was enough to get him back in his car and drive to his parent’s house and start his recovery journey.”
Tom, smiling, added: “He’s got family now, a business and his own house.”
“That was the first life saved, which made me think maybe we can make a difference.”
It was then that Tom decided to work with psychiatrists and develop what has become the BarberTalk training so more lives could be saved.
But a key part of its design was an emphasis on non-clinical support.
“I wanted to make the training more relatable and less about clinical diagnosis,” he said.
But Tom knows that there is no cure for suicide and in the past decade of mental health advocacy, he has known people who have decided to end their lives which has taken a toll on his own mental health as a result.
Mr Chapman said although mental health messaging and the importance of talking nowadays is everywhere, still not everyone knows how to open up.
The success of his training lies in the unique relationships barbers develop with their clients and the casual settings they operate in.
“As a barber or hairdresser, we’re in a fantastic position because we are familiar with our clients,” Tom explained.
“I’ve got clients who were single men when I first cut their hair, and now their kids have kids, so I’ve been part of their lives for lots of different things.
“And we know people from all walks of life, and hear about their first dates, the engagement rings, see the baby pictures, chat about divorces, weddings, funerals.”
And due to their long-standing relationships, Tom said barbers are therefore able to recognise changes in their clients.
He said: “We know what they talk about, how they dress, what they look like, their timekeeping and we understand their behaviour.
“And hairdressers and barbers are pretty good at listening anyway because we have to understand what you want to do to your hair.”
With that understanding, Tom said that they can notice key signs of behaviour change that close family and friends may overlook.
He said sudden weight loss or gain is a strong indicator – although it may not always have a negative cause.
If a barber recognises a behaviour change, then Tom said it is about them having the confidence to ask questions, phrased in a way that can reveal certain signs of poor mental health.
“Asking a direct question such as ‘is there anything coming up you’re looking forward to?’ is simple but can reveal quite a lot,” Tom said.
“If someone’s in a bad place and has little hope, they’re going to struggle to find something that they’re looking forward to.”
But Tom emphasised that the training is not intended to “turn barbers into therapists” and is not about finding solutions for people who may be going through a difficult time.
Rather it is about knowing how to point someone in the right direction.
And while locally and nationally mental health services continue to be stretched, Tom said “early intervention is the best way to make any real difference”.
As a father to two young boys and off the back of International Men’s Day this past week, Tom is passionate about what he said has become “his mission and purpose”.
As he continues to travel around the country training fellow barbers and hairdressers, Tom’s next goal is to launch a similar training module at college level so students can be equipped before they start their careers.
His time in Jersey was funded by the Government of Jersey’s Connect Me grant scheme.
