The Confess Mission advocates for the psychological well being of Black males throughout the U.S. by coaching barbers to hearken to and assist shoppers in disaster. Overcoming stigma and structural obstacles to psychological well being care within the Black neighborhood, its founder Lorenzo Lewis turns barbershops into neighborhood hubs the place psychological well being consciousness can flourish—through a community of 1,000 barbers in 40 cities, who in flip attain one million shoppers per 12 months. Ashoka’s Yeleka Barrett caught up with Lorenzo to be taught extra.
Yeleka Barrett: Lorenzo, let’s begin with the inspiration behind the Confess Mission. What downside did you see?
Lorenzo Lewis
Lorenzo Lewis: To be sincere, as a Black man in America, I by no means felt seen or heard, not to mention celebrated. So that non-public expertise, shared by many different Black individuals, was the very first thing to encourage me. Then there was my very own journey with psychological well being: despair, incarceration, having a brother with bipolar dysfunction, and understanding pals that had PTSD from violence within the streets. Witnessing that violence impacted the way in which that I considered systemic inequality. Past that, I labored in behavioral well being for ten years. As a case supervisor at a hospital, I noticed largely white clinicians struggling to attach with Black sufferers.
Barrett: I may think about that in lots of these settings, you had been the one Black individual on workers.
Lewis: Sure. There’s an actual scarcity of Black clinicians and medical doctors within the psychological well being house. As a result of I’m not a physician, I didn’t diagnose and prescribe. However I did numerous direct providers round care and remedy, which introduced me nearer to sufferers, and I noticed firsthand how impactful it could possibly be for Black individuals to obtain care from different Black individuals.
Barrett: So now with the Confess Mission, individuals are seeing what you noticed ten years in the past. You’ve now educated an intensive community of barbers to be psychological well being advocates. How do these barbers discover you?
Lewis: A lot of it’s phrase of mouth—numerous barbers know that individuals are struggling however don’t all the time know the place to show for assist. We give them instruments to deepen these interactions and intervene once they see somebody who is basically struggling or in danger. On high of this, partnering with manufacturers and entertainers, from Gillette to Oprah and Killer Mike, has helped loads. Now that we’re beginning up once more after Covid, we’ll be reaching out to Black girls stylists to construct partnerships with magnificence manufacturers that assist girls, and, by extension, younger Black kids.
Barrett: And as soon as the barber or stylist is available in, how do you encourage them to develop into advocates?
Lorenzo onboarding and training new members.
Lewis: We now have a regular coaching that lasts an hour and focuses on 4 areas: lively listening, validation, constructive communication, and stigma discount. We have constructed this coaching with researchers at Harvard College, Georgia State College, and the Division of Behavioral Well being and Developmental Disabilities within the State of Georgia. We’re now working with state and federal businesses to make sure that this turns into evidence-based coaching. We wish individuals to consider it like CPR: a mandatory and efficient intervention when somebody’s in a disaster.
Barrett: What’s a typical misunderstanding in regards to the work you do?
Lewis: The Black neighborhood within the U.S. is basically disconnected from what a psychological well being emergency seems like and the way their psychological well being can affect these round them. That’s as a result of it’s nonetheless stigmatized. I believe slavery is an enormous a part of how this unwillingness to speak our harm and challenges started. Take what I name “sluggish suicide”: somebody who’s abusing substances or who seeks out lively violence as a result of they do not wish to dwell any longer. We wish to educate individuals on the connections between despair and trauma—to clarify that, for instance, gun violence is not only a rage and anger challenge, it is also a psychological well being challenge. We’re beginning a dialog.
Barrett: Why is now a pivotal second for this work?
Lewis: We’re in an ongoing second of upheaval, proper? Individuals are primed for change. I imply, ten years in the past, Black individuals weren’t linked to this psychological well being dialog in any respect. No person ought to should die by the hands of the police, however between the police brutality, and the world shutting down with Covid, it was wonderful to see individuals begin to speak about their psychological well being. And to see that there are dangerous insurance policies in place, in an extended historic context of inequity which have harm Black individuals’s high quality of life. Individuals are starting to appreciate that there is extra to life than simply surviving. I’ve gotten calls like, ‘man, I get it. I see what you guys have been doing. This makes numerous sense.’
Barrett: Is there a enterprise case for the work that you simply’re doing?
The Confess Mission has grown to incorporate 1,000 barbers throughout 40 states.
Lewis: Sure. First, we’re bolstering small companies. Our barbers are already self-employed entrepreneurs. Many barbers we have labored with went on to start out barber colleges due to the community we supplied. And it helps them to maintain wealth of their households by proudly owning their outlets, which they cross alongside to their kids. Second, we’re making a stronger workforce. Stress creates sickness within the physique, so when we have now extra individuals which are mentally wholesome, which have sources—which are linked, we’ll see a distinction of their output. All of that impacts our financial system.
Barrett: You shared a imaginative and prescient for a future wherein the flexibility to handle psychological well being crises turns into as reflexive as CPR. How else may issues look totally different within the subsequent 5 to 10 years?
Lewis: We wish to lower youth suicide and suicide by males by 20%. Past that, care will develop into extra accessible. While you stroll into one among our barber outlets, we have now posters up with sources that folks can name. And so it even begins to alter the way in which the world seems.
At current, the community reaches about one million males and boys yearly.
As we proceed to develop this, individuals will see a distinction in society. Greater than something, I’m working towards a cultural change. We’re working with DJs at radio stations, and I do a weekly phase on an area station in Georgia referred to as the Psychological Well being Second. So each Thursday for 3 minutes, I am speaking in regards to the local weather of psychological well being in Black communities, and it’s performed on a Black radio station with majority Black viewers and listeners.
I believe that is what the Confess Mission actually does very well: join with totally different cultural dynamics. It’s not simply celebrities. We have engaged with ex-gang members and introduced them contained in the barbershop. We introduced cops within barbershops to have conversations. This broad outreach to totally different sorts of individuals is basically key to making a neighborhood.
Lorenzo Lewis was named an Ashoka Fellow in 2022. You’ll be able to learn extra about him and his thought right here.
