Opening up about your feelings, emotions and struggles can be hard. It’s not easy to share mental health challenges as a man, especially for men of color. As an African American man myself, I’ve faced mental health battles in silence because I didn’t feel I had an outlet to share what I was going through.
“In 2022, suicide was the third leading cause of death for Black or African Americans ages 10 to 24,” according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health. With the hope of providing people of color a place to seek mental health support, Lorenzo Lewis started The Confess Project of America, an organization that provides mental health training and resources for Black men and the African American community. “The way we’re raised. Men are being tough, strong; it’s never really directed that you should get help…. Having a model like this, having a safe space is really powerful,” says Lewis.
The grassroots mental health initiative has trained over 4,000 barbers and stylists across America to become mental health advocates for their clients. Here’s how The Confess Project of America has answered the call to help the African American community in barbershops and salons, places where visitors feel comfortable opening up.
From almost being incarcerated to starting a movement
Lorenzo Lewis got into trouble as a youth. He got involved in gangs and was almost incarcerated at age 17. He was given probation and then spent time in his aunt’s salon, a place of refuge throughout his youth. A man named Sylvester was a barber in that salon and became Lewis’ mentor.
The guidance and community atmosphere of the shop and Sylvester’s mentorship were crucial, as Lewis struggled with depression and anxiety. “… Going to her shop as a kid and seeing the power of conversation and how therapy comes together in untraditional forms through the barbers and beauty shops, watching [my aunt]… She was a doctor in her own right but was actually a beauty stylist right there in the neighborhood. People would come there before they would even go to a clinic, which [was] not too far down the road,” says Lewis.
Lewis was able to share his mental health struggles with Sylvester and knew there was a need to help Black men find better coping mechanisms. He saw that people of color needed a way to overcome the stigma and shame of seeking help.
Lewis started The Confess Project in 2016 with savings and donations from family, friends and community supporters. He got the idea from a similar program he’d seen for women stylists in salons.
“It was really rooted in my, you know, my childhood trauma… I had this idea about starting this movement, but it didn’t really originate from me. I had a friend that I had watched run a program prior that was promoting girls and uplifting women,” says Lewis.
Lewis understood that barbershops and salons were places where Black communities got help, since they were environments they already frequented. Growing up in his aunt’s shop, he saw people feel comfortable sharing deeper conversations with their barbers and hairstylists.
Providing mental health assistance within underrepresented communities
The Confess Project of America has grown to 35 states and 63 cities, reaching 4 million people annually. The program equips barbers and stylists with peer-support tools to become mental health advocates.
Harvard University has studied the model, which has been shown to be effective. The Confess Project of America is built on a four-tier model: access, advocacy, research and innovation.
“We were in the community doing community-based research,” says Lewis. “We needed to make sure that the work we were doing was… ensuring best practices were met while providing value to the community. We’ve always worked with academic institutions from the beginning. I think Harvard was just a big fish that saw greatness in us. We worked with them and created a publication that got internationally published, and now we have an evidence-based model.”
Barbers and stylists offer a space where people can open up and share their feelings. Lewis thought it made sense to provide mental health resources for barbers and stylists to offer more mental health support for patrons when they are present in their salon chairs.
“This program [would] be beneficial to stylists and barbers because we encounter men, women, children, on a daily basis. People sit in our chairs, and we’ve been referred to over the years as counselors. Because we do sit, we listen, we allow the clients to voice their thoughts, their opinions. Sometimes they just come in just to have an avenue to let loose…,” says Stacia McNeal, a licensed master cosmetologist who’s worked in salons for 12 years.
“Stylists and barbers need to be educated when dealing with clients who may encounter certain situations or circumstances, [so we’re] able to recognize when someone may be going through depression or they’re having anxiety,” McNeal says. “We [need to be] able to provide resources–proper information, proper guidance–to help our clients because we never want to give misinformation to anyone who’s dealing with any type of mental health [problems], behavioral problems or anything that’s out of the ordinary,” says McNeal.
There should be no stigma in asking for help
The Confess Project of America is working toward decreasing the stigma around getting help in the African American community. They aim to expand into more cities and give more barbers access to mental health support resources.
Joshua P. Smith, DPC, MA, LPC, a licensed professional counselor whose client base is 75% Black men, says it’s important to give barbers the tools they need to talk to their clients and advocate for their mental health.
“I think that [The Confess Project of America] is an excellent idea…. As we know, especially Black men, the barbershop is a safe space,” says Smith. “It is a place where Black men come to be who they are and express what’s going on. And oftentimes, those barbers are the ones who are leading those organizations and giving advice. So, I think it’s a great idea that they have these tools.”
Lewis advises taking life “a day at a time” and says “…it’s OK to not be OK. And it’s also… OK to get help…. And I think, also, being around other people who get help is really powerful.”
Photo courtesy of The Confess Project of America
