Charlene Stepney still thinks about a French-speaking woman who entered her salon years ago, brought by a man who spoke on her behalf and kept a close eye on her during her hair appointment.
“Because I spoke French, and it was strange, I started asking her questions,” Stepney said Thursday evening at her business, Stepney Institute of Esthetics & Wellness in Homewood. “I asked her: was that her husband? and she said, ‘No, it wasn’t.’ Then I asked her: was she safe? And she didn’t want to respond.”
Stepney said she believes the woman was being trafficked, but at the time she didn’t know how to help her.
“To this day I feel like I let her down,” Stepney said.
Estheticians like Stepney are geared to meet clients from a wide variety of backgrounds and life experiences, which may include survivors of abuse. In 2019, training on how to handle difficult conversations and recognize signs of domestic violence and sexual assault became mandatory by state law for all licensed beauty professionals.
On Thursday, representatives from the Crisis Center for South Suburbia offered training and perspective during a session at the Stepney Institute. It was one of the first of many offered to salon professionals in their schools and workplaces during October, Domestic Violence Awareness Month. While the center offers free year-round training at salons and cosmetology schools like Stepney’s, Crisis Center director of support services Chris Alcorn Catena hopes to highlight the resources to all cosmetologists in the south and southwest suburbs looking to meet their permanent educational requirement for license renewal.
“The reason it’s so important to us, honestly, is because estheticians have unique access,” Alcorn Catena said. “A beautician is one of the few professionals you can touch… My stylist is going to brush the hair from my neck. If there are bruises, they will see them.”
The stakes of initiating or responding to a client showing signs of abuse were not lost on the students during Thursday’s session at the Stepney Institute Thursday. Tracy Curtis, community education and outreach coordinator at the Crisis Center, is a survivor of domestic violence herself and delivered the training, emphasizing the importance of offering support and resources to those who may be in dangerous relationships.
According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 41% of women and 26% of men have experienced sexual contact violence, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime.
“It’s all our responsibility to help,” Curtis said during Thursday’s practice. “It really is, because it impacts all of us. I was that one victim that my friend said, “I don’t want to get involved.” So I don’t want anyone to feel so uncomfortable that they don’t get involved because they need the support.”
Curtis said anyone unsure how to support someone experiencing domestic violence can contact the Crisis Center’s 24/7 hotline at 708-429-7233.
After the two-hour training, Stepney Institute student Tymeeka Fairfax said she was excited when she found out the training was required for licensure because she thought she could apply what she learned even outside of her work in cosmetology. She said that as a volunteer mentor to young girls, she realizes the importance of discussing healthy relationships early and that the training has provided new skills for initiating and guiding conversations about intimate partnerships.
“Before I came to this class, I had a session with a group of girls talking about dating, and the conversations were all, ‘I love him and he loves me.’” Fairfax said. “And I asked: what is love? Love language is something that needs to be transparent because when you know how to love someone, you can take into account: okay, this is what abuse is and this is what love is – differentiate between the two.
But targeting beauty professionals with the legal requirement for domestic violence training has met with some resistance. Stepney said that since the mandate came into effect, she has wondered why the state has placed the onus on the predominantly female industry to respond to an issue that is largely male-driven.
“There are still many moments when I wonder why we were picked,” Stepney said. “How much help are we really going to provide? What we never really talk about, but we should, is how many of us are in abusive situations.”
Stepney said she hopes that in the future, estheticians will have more tools to protect themselves while continuing to support their clients and colleagues.
“As time goes on, hopefully the conversations will continue and they can give us more training,” she said.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, you can reach the national hotline at 1-800-799-7233.
