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Free Mental Health Course For Isle Of Wight Hair And Beauty Professionals

Hair and beauty professionals on the Island are being offered free mental health training to support their customers.

The Isle of Wight Council's Public Health team has arranged for The Lions Barber Collective to deliver their BarberTalk Hair and BeautyTalk course on the Island.

Cllr Karl Love, cabinet member for public health, said:

"Barbers, hairdressers and beauty professionals can play an important part in supporting and improving our mental health and wellbeing.

"The intimacy of personal services lifts the mood of people and the frequency of having hair cuts/beauty treatments helps anonymise the relationship enabling open and frank conversations.

"This training opportunity helps to boost and support the professional skills, knowledge and confidence of stylists and beauty technicians."

Torquay-based barber Tom Chapman founded The Lions Barber Collective in 2015 following the death of a close friend.


Recognising that barbers and hair professionals are often a friendly ear to their customers, Tom collaborated with experts to develop a training programme for hair and beauty professionals to improve conversations around mental health and wellbeing.

The BarberTalk programme aims to arm barbers with the skills to:

  • recognise signs of poor mental health in their clients;
  • ask direct questions to facilitate conversation;
  • listen with empathy and no judgement;
  • help to signpost their clients to the support they need.

The free, four-hour training session takes place on Zoom through Eventbrite on 28 March, between 10am and 2pm.

The training is funded by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care System.

For further information, contact [email protected] 

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