By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — Jermane Robinson recognizes when someone sitting in his barbershop chair needs more than a haircut.
As a barber for more than a dozen years, he’s learned to help people handle the problems they’re wresting with inside their head, too.
Now, the city of Rockford is tapping into the real-world experience that barbers like Robinson have in helping people overcome trauma.
“I’m a victim of a lot of trauma myself, coming up as a kid,” said Robinson, who owns Precision Cuts Barbershop in downtown. “Trauma can be in any category of life, and it feels good when someone tells me that I saved their life, stopping them from suicide.”
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Robinson and his staff at Precision Cuts Barbershop, 305 Mulberry St., are among the first to partner with the city on a new pilot program done in coordination with local barbers and beauticians. It’s called the Barbershop Project, and it aims to help barbers and beauticians support the mental well-being of their clients.
“Barbershops and salons are often places in our community where clients are able to develop a relationship, a sense of shared community,” said Brandon Tillman, the city’s manager of community violence prevention. “Because of that shared community that develops in these shops, those clients are able to establish relationships and share the experiences and troubles that they have.”
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City officials gathered with Robinson and his team on Thursday at Precision Cuts to detail the program, which they said was fitting to announce because this is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and Mental Illness Awareness Week.
Select barbers and beauticians will go through educational sessions and training with groups such as NAMI Northern Illinois and the Family Peace Center to help them connect clients with the resources they need. Precision Cuts was the first partner, and the city said it will gradually and deliberately connect with more shops to expand its network.
“A huge piece of this is making sure that we get individuals who are already trusted in the community,” Mayor Tom McNamara said. “Folks like Jermane Robinson, he’s already trusted in the community. He’s already doing a lot of this work.”
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Helping people, in particular youth, cope with trauma is mission critical in the city’s effort to reduce crime. Rockford Police Department data shows that roughly 60-70% of youth committing violent crime have documented exposure to domestic or sexual violence.
“Conclusively, our children were being exposed to trauma … and we understand that our children were really working their pain out on the streets,” said Jennifer Cacciapaglia, the head of the Mayor’s Office of Domestic and Community Violence Prevention.
Cacciapaglia said that when the office opened in 2018, it set a goal to be community-centered. That’s what it’s doing by partnering with barbers and other community members who have a shared goal to help people handle trauma.
“This isn’t about us coming in and doing something for our community. This is about us coming and doing it with our community,” she said. “This is a shared collaboration. Whatever we are sharing, we are being enriched equally as much with the wisdom, resources and the connections.”
Robinson said he’s helped kids, athletes and parents who have opened up to him about problems they’re facing. The programs he went through with NAMI were his first formal training, but his experiences as a youth gave him insight into how to overcome traumatic experiences.
“The things I’ve seen,” Robinson said with a deep exhale, “that was my best teacher”
“It’s a mental battle, and everyday is a spiritual and mental warfare,” he said. “I’m here to help anybody.”
Get involved | Barbershop project
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This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas