A UCHealth grant will help barbers and stylists use their deep connections in the Black community to help address their clients’ mental health issues.
There was less than a minute to go in the fourth quarter with the Denver Nuggets trailing the Golden State Warriors by seven. Nuggets’ star point guard Jamal Murray drove to the basket, came down wrong, collapsed to the hardwood, and writhed in pain as he clutched his left knee. His season, and the next, ended that night of April 12, 2021.
In the many months that followed reconstructive surgery for a torn ACL, physical rehabilitation was the main focus. But getting back on the court would take dealing with the mental challenges that also comes with such an injury.
“Physically, you’re going to heal. But your mental health is what gets you through those tough days, those dark days, those dark moments,” Murray said. “I wouldn’t be able to get through my ACL without reinforcement, support from people in my ear, people I could trust.”
Murray spoke those words in what, for many, is their safe space: Hollywood’s Barbershop at the corner of Colfax Avenue and Josephine Street in Denver’s Congress Park neighborhood.
Barbers and stylists as informal therapists
Among those visiting that safe space as Murray spoke was Alex Reed, a University of Colorado School of Medicine clinical psychologist who sees patients at UCHealth A.F. Williams Family Medicine Clinic in Denver’s Central Park neighborhood. Some years back, Reed was riding his bike home when a former colleague called and asked if he might be available to give a short talk to the Denver Nuggets about getting better sleep. That led to short talks to tall people on other mental health and well-being topics. Then, in 2019, the NBA started requiring teams to have professional mental health staff available for players. Reed became the Nuggets’ team psychologist in addition to his day job at UCHealth.
Not long after that, Reed was getting his hair cut, and the conversation with the stylist turned to mental health. The stylist told Reed that discussions with customers often turn to personal issues and mental health challenges.
That made sense to Reed. People visit their barbers and stylists more often than their primary care doctors and psychologists, assuming they have either one. They tend to stick with the same barbershop or salon, building long-term relationships with their barbers and stylists. So, people often open up as the clippers clip and the scissors snip.
Being a good listener is part of job, but Reed wondered if there weren’t a way to provide barbers and stylists with tools to identify and address serious mental-health issues – depression, anxiety, substance abuse, PTSD – as well as offer advice on mental wellness and well-being.
The Colorado Black Health Collaborative opens the door
Reed did some research and came upon the Colorado Black Health Collaborative’s work to bring blood-pressure testing to more than a dozen Denver barbershops. He pitched the idea of training barbers and stylists on mental health issues to Dr. Terri Richardson, a physician and the Collaborative board’s vice-chair. She liked the idea.
“There’s a lot of stigma around mental health, and our community, particularly the Black community, doesn’t really trust the health care system a lot of times, so going to a trusted person to talk about mental health is a wonderful opportunity,” Richardson said. “The barbers and stylists are really trusted individuals in our community, and so clients feel very comfortable talking to them about their mental health and what’s going on in their lives.”
Reed and Richardson used funding from a Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CCTSI) grant to work with with three barbers and stylists who had been participating in the Collaborative’s blood-pressure initiative. One of them was Mykhal Goodloe, who had been proprietor of Hollywood’s Barbershop for more than a quarter century.
“Not only is he a barber, but he’s a community champion, not only for this program, but for the community at large,” Richardson said.
Goodloe and his peers shared stories clients had shared about their stress, depression, anxiety, substance misuse, and grief, among other topics, and they loved the idea of a formal program to help barbers and stylists build skills and share resources to improve their clients’ mental health, Reed says. That motivated Reed and Richardson to apply for a Caring for Denver Foundation grant to make it happen.
Project HairCare is born
That grant, which came through in 2022, expanded Reed’s and Richardson’s Project HairCare program to 25 barbershops and salons in Denver. The program brings barbers and stylists in for four 90-minute training sessions – over dinner, typically on Monday evenings, which tend to be slow in the hair business. In addition, Project HairCare offers sessions on “hot topics” such as motivational interviewing and improving sleep.
“I picked up some tools as far as stress management, anxiety, and depression,” Goodloe said. “That’s where I learned the tools, and I’m just trying to bring the tools back to the community.”
Those tools include contact information for emergency mental-health resources and information sheets on key topics, which are available on the Project HairCare website. An added benefit, Reed and Richardson say, is that the barbers and stylists have formed an impromptu community support group along the way.
“It helps the barbers and stylists themselves,” Richardson said. “Six or seven days a week, everyone’s coming them with their issues.”
UCHealth grant expands Project HairCare to Aurora
Another grant – this one for $25,000 from UCHealth – will help Project HairCare serve barbershops and salons in the health system’s home base of Aurora. It’s one of a dozen grants from UCHealth’s new community grant program, which supports metro-Denver nonprofits addressing key health issues. The Nuggets’ official health care partner brought the basketball star into Goodloe’s barbershop to celebrate the occasion.
Murray sat for a neck trim courtesy of Goodloe, and, after that, shook many hands; signed various basketballs, jerseys, hats, and photos; posed for photos with barbers and customers; and spun a basketball on the fingertip of Goodloe’s son Mason, 11, who delighted in the moment.
The Nuggets’ 2023 NBA championship capping Murray’s first season back after his injury served as proof enough of full recovery on both physical and mental counts.
“It’s a safe place, and a place where they can put trust in the barbers to not only look at the hair and make sure they look good, but make sure everything’s right on the inside as well,” Murray said. “I’m glad that we’re raising more awareness.”