Leeds Mind is proud to launch a series of short films, Barber Talk: Looking Good, Feeling Better.
The films give an insight into barber shops as key community hubs for mental wellbeing, where barbers are often having mental health conversations with their customers.
Barbershops are often considered to be community hubs and places of belonging where men gather to talk about the ups and downs of life. Barbers tend to have natural rapport-building skills that help them build long-term and trusting relationships with their customers. Because of this, barbershops are a space where many men feel comfortable discussing their mental health and wellbeing.
However, discussing mental health with customers isn’t part of a lot of barber training. So, to acknowledge and support with this, Leeds Mind developed The Barber Project. The project aims to help barbers from African, Caribbean, and South Asian backgrounds improve their confidence with the mental health conversations many of them are already having with customers.
We have worked with barbers from these cultural backgrounds in their barbershops to develop 5 short videos tackling different mental health topics that might come up in barbershops. We hope this will create safer communal spaces and help tackle the health inequalities faced by men from African, Caribbean, and South Asian backgrounds.
The videos were developed in collaboration with The Lippy People, a video storytelling charity that collaborates with people to share their lived experiences. They provide insight from experienced barbers and from a Leeds Mind Peer Support Trainer for spotting poor mental health, having difficult conversations, barber boundaries and barber self-care. We have also developed a barber’s resource page with links to the videos and further information.
A big thank you to all the barbers that agreed to share their experience and knowledge on camera. We couldn’t have done this without you!
You can watch the videos on our YouTube Channel and find further information on the Barber Resources Page. If you are a barber, know any barbers or work within African, Caribbean and South Asian communities, please share the videos.
