Hair stylists trained to look for signs of domestic violence

Brigitte Greenberg

Tuesday, July 27, 1999 | 10 a.m.

NEW LONDON, Conn. -- After the trembling has subsided and the blood has been wiped away sometimes only one person can be trusted to hide a patch of torn-out hair and cover the black eyes with makeup: a hairdresser.

Inspired by the intimate relationship often forged between a woman and her stylist, advocates against domestic violence have taken their campaign into the beauty parlor.

"We're like your doctor or your priest," stylist Mary Jo McCoy, of the New London Academy of Hairdressing and Cosmetology, says. "We touch your hair, your face, we speak woman-to-woman and have that eye contact, so we get very close. We can tell when something's not right."

When a customer sits down in a salon with a wet head and smock sometimes her guard comes down and she gets personal, even becomes vulnerable, McCoy says.

"You hear her say, 'Oh, my boyfriend's giving me a hard time' or 'We had a tough morning,' and you get very protective of your clients because they're your friends," she says. "We go through the ups and downs of their lives."

Although federal data on domestic violence is notoriously incomplete, the latest statistics from the Justice Department show that about 30 percent of slain women are killed by boyfriends or current or former spouses.

Susan O'Toole, director of the Women's Center of Southeastern Connecticut, says the idea of enlisting stylists sprang from the notion that there are few places where women feel comfortable confiding in one another.

In June O'Toole launched the beautician-teaching program which serves southeastern Connecticut. The program is being funded through a $1,000 grant from the New London Rotary Foundation.

Women's groups already have hailed the program as an innovative approach to reaching and helping battered women. It might even save lives, they say.

Beauticians are trained to recognize signs of physical abuse by checking for marks on the back of the neck, bumps on the head and bruises. They also are advised how to delicately broach the subject of domestic violence during casual conversation.

Beauticians then receive information on domestic abuse hot lines, counseling services, safe houses and shelters, law enforcement agencies and other resources.

Some salon owners and stylists were resistant at first fearing they would be provoking trouble or violating the privacy of their customers, O'Toole says. Eventually, most warmed to the idea.

"We're not asking them to be counselors. We want them to see the signs, whether it's a bruise or they just pick up on something in conversation. We want to teach them how to talk to their clients so they can gently hint that help is available," O'Toole says.

The training consists of a day of seminars given by counselors and other experts on how to spot the symptoms. Beauticians are told to examine what a customer says -- or doesn't say -- and her body language.

A 39-year-old mother of three, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says she was too embarrassed to tell anyone that her husband was hitting her. She wished her stylist had asked her about the bald spots on her head.

"There were patches of hair missing, and she really didn't say anything," she says. "It was becoming apparent physically."

She eventually fled to a shelter with her three children.

One of McCoy's customers, Marcia Bell, 66, says she would not be offended if McCoy asked about an unusual mark or bruise.

"Men talk to bartenders; women talk to their hairdresser. You really do have a personal relationship with your hairdresser, and frequently there is no one else you would tell," Bell says.

Kara Peterman, spokeswoman for the U.S. Justice Department's Women Against Violence Office, says she was not aware of any other programs in the country specifically training beauticians.

Donna Edwards, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Network to End Domestic Violence, an advocacy group that lobbies for federal aid to help victims, says she hopes other communities adopt the beautician-teaching program.

"It strikes me as one very creative way to reach women that we haven't ordinarily tackled but ought to," she says.