Mitch Momodu remembers like it was yesterday, the day his uncle took him to a Jamaican barber in Clapton more than 30 years ago, for an eagle haircut.
Bonding with older black men while sitting in the shop, a safe intergenerational space, inspired the barber who now runs Fade Fabric Barbers in Dalston to buy scissors himself in high school.
“For the black community, we don’t have a pub culture,” the British-Nigerian barber said, against the buzz of his clipper. “Pub culture for the average Brit is not just about drinking. It’s about socializing, it’s about communities coming together,” he said.
Black British barbershops have long been a sanctuary for black men and young men, not only to transform their hair, but also to talk about love, financial struggles and even mental health. “The barbershop has always been a hub for black men,” Momodu said.
Along with four other Islington barbershops, the 40-year-old recently completed a new training course to learn how to talk to customers about mental health, recognize when they might be in trouble and direct customers to professional support.
Blacks of African and Caribbean descent are much more likely to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act. blacks are too 40% more likely to access treatment through police or criminal justice channels, and less likely to receive psychological therapy.
Two-thirds of permanent school exclusions are black students, and 60% of blacks in England feel they are treated with less respect than others because of their ethnicity, according to Islington council data.
“Maybe I could catch something early that could intervene in a young person going too far,” said Momodu, who has a 2-year-old son. “It’s also being able to pass on what I’ve learned to other people, including some dads who may have trouble communicating with their kids.”
The course is part of a three-year program, Young Black Men and Mental Healthlaunched in November by Islington Council and the NHS.
Together they have invested £1.6m to support young black men and boys with their mental health and improve their life aspirations and opportunities.
“What we wanted to create is a lighthouse model, so that there are places in the community that offer spaces of safety, and we saw that through the barber program,” said Charisse Monero, project manager.
Ivelaw King, 47, a barber from Guyana who also trained in the program, remembers a client who took his own life. “Men don’t want to come in like, ‘I’m a soft guy.’ They want to be macho,” King said of the cultural reasons some don’t seek help.
The training is an extension, King said, of what many barbers already do. “At first, they don’t really open,” he said. “Once they get to know you, all of that becomes easier. [for them] to talk about financial struggles, problems with the lady, problems with the children and different aspects of their lives,” he said. “We just need more people to come out and talk about these things more.”
Through focus groups and interviews in 2021, Islington Council worked directly with 43 Black youth and men to co-design the programme.
The program is divided into chapters, one in which full-time counselors will be placed in four Islington secondary schools to provide long-term support to black youth aged 16-25 at risk of poor health, violence and exclusion.
Another line includes key workers who will provide support and training, and a “cultural competence” program for the police, GPs, social care and schools.
A year after the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic shed light on health inequalities, combined with a glaring lack of role models, broader institutional racism and the murder of George Floyd meant that at the time “there was a lot of despair”. Monero said.
Kwaku Asiedu, 21, born in Islington to a Ghanaian family, felt the pressure to succeed and defy stereotypes as a young black man in London from an immigrant family.
“I internalized all of that, the shame, the feeling of needing to get it right,” he said. “That led me to go through my own mental health issues, even reaching points where I almost took my own life.”
Along with the Islington council and RAW London, Asiedu participated in a short film about a young black Londoner with mental health issues, who finally trusts his teacher. It’s a film that Asiedu hopes will show help for other young black Brits like him before it’s too late.
