Fashioning Stylists to Spot Domestic Violence

The district attorney’s office here is putting a new spin on an old slogan: Only her hairdresser knows for sure.

Hoping to reach women who have been abused by husbands or boyfriends, prosecutors have begun training hair stylists to spot signs of domestic violence and offer victims advice and support.

Although the problem of spousal abuse is complex, the prosecutors’ rationale is simple: If you’re close enough to cut her hair, you’re close enough to see her bruises. If she tells you she’s in trouble, you can tell her how to get help.

“This is to get women services . . . so that we never end up having to see them in the criminal justice system,” said Susan Breall, an assistant district attorney who is overseeing the effort. “The important thing is to get the community involved so that victims of domestic violence . . . are better able to extricate themselves.”

A month ago, Dist. Atty. Terence Hallinan sent out thousands of “Dear Hairdresser” letters inviting stylists throughout the city to seminars where they would learn how to spot evidence of spousal abuse and advise the victims of what they can do about it.

Hairdressers, he wrote, have been tapped in various ways. Twenty years ago, they were trained to spot potential skin cancer lesions. A decade ago, one Southern stylist used her salon to help educate African American women about AIDS and HIV infection.

“Your profession involves close, prolonged contact with the hair and face area of your clients, which affords you an opportunity to see bruising or other injury,” Hallinan wrote, noting that the nature of the “hairdresser-client relationship lends itself to the possibility of successful intervention.”

Seven women and men signed up for the first training effort on Sept. 10. They included hairdressers from a pricey downtown salon and a Mission District shop, from trendy Union Street and more modest neighborhoods.

Helene Rene, who teaches a beauty make-over class called Never Have Another Ugly Day, was in the first class. She has had bruised clients sob in her chair about the pain and fear they endure at the hands of people who should love them but hurt them instead.

“Encouraging her to leave the situation was all I could do after she cried her eyes out,” Rene said of one woman. Now, with the training, Rene said she is better equipped to help her clients through difficult times.

One recent afternoon in her snug Union Street shop, a pile of “Domestic Violence Awareness Month” literature was stacked under a sign offering chin waxing for $7, eyebrow tinting for $10.

Rene said she already does lots of volunteer work, cutting hair for cancer victims undergoing chemotherapy and for people in one of San Francisco’s major drug rehabilitation programs.

“I don’t donate much money,” she said. “Instead, I donate my hands.”

Rene also plans to attend the D.A.’s next training class, just to gain a little more confidence in her ability to help. Because she knows the issue will come up again--and soon.

“Hairdressers are like shrinks,” she said. “People won’t go get help, but they’ll talk to us.”

The so-called Hairdressers Project originated at the Women’s Center of Southeastern Connecticut several years ago. Workers at the combined shelter, crisis hotline and education program envisioned an effort they called Natural Helpers.

They figured that anyone who had contact with someone in an abusive situation should be able to offer assistance. From that, enlisting hairdressers was a logical progression, said Maud Pellegrino, director of educational programs at the Connecticut center.

One of the most difficult aspects of domestic violence--which often is emotional as well as physical--is the isolation an abused woman endures, Pellegrino said.

“One day, you can’t see your friends,” she said, as your abusive partner takes control of your life. “Then your family. Then you can’t leave the house. As a woman’s circle of contact with the outside world gets smaller and smaller, the last person . . . whom we get to go see is often the hairdresser.”