Katie McKeown is blow-drying hair on the third floor of a Belfast building surrounded by mannequin heads. Bananarama songs play as staff members stick posters with helpline numbers for victims of domestic abuse to the backs of toilet doors.
McKeown (19), from Loughinisland in Co Down, is among the 150 trainees at the Academy Hair & Beauty Training School in the city centre.
Last month, two Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officers unexpectedly visited the premises and invited managers to a training event aimed at helping them recognise signs of coercive control.
“I think it’s a really good idea because a lot of women feel more comfortable talking to their hair stylist than even to a member of their own family,” says McKeown.
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“When you’re with your hairdresser, you can vent. It’s like an escape.”
Organising post-Easter work placements on the spotless tiled floor is Nicki Smallwood, who qualified as a hairdresser 40 years ago. She is carrying a pile of material handed out at the PSNI event, which she attended.
“We’ve put it all up inside our toilet doors. There’s QR codes with numbers so they can see who to contact,” says Smallwood, who is head of recruitment at the academy.
“Those toilets service clients from the downstairs salon as well as our trainees ... so everybody gets to see them.
“We’re a training organisation for 16-24 year-olds who are mainly women so it made sense for us to find out more about spotting signs of abuse. Our aim in going was for our young people.”
Her colleague Stefanie Andrews agrees.
“You automatically think of domestic abuse violence, the punching and kicking,” says Andrews, a beauty tutor at the academy.
“But it’s much more than that, it’s the coercive control, things that you would never think of; things that I know some of my trainees might regard as normal.”
It’s the “subtle signs”, adds Karen Thompson.
“The nit-picking, the constant ringing or asking why you are wearing something – taking away your confidence,” says the recruitment manager.
“There’s so many things labelled as abuse which people just accepted as normal in the past.”
Led by the PSNI and local bodies known as policing and community safety partnerships, about 50 businesses attended the Behind the Smile seminar in Belfast last Monday.
It was targeted at the hair and beauty sector because of the “unique position” and “safe space” it operates in, according to a police officer driving the campaign.
Women’s Aid, Assist NI (an organisation which helps victims navigate the court system) and domestic abuse survivors also took part.
“Hairdressers and beauticians build trusted relationships and may notice changes others don’t,” says Supt Finola Dornan, PSNI south Belfast district commander.
“This training was about giving them the confidence to recognise the signs and know how to respond safely if that happens.”
The idea came from Jodie King, a PSNI constable appointed to Dornan’s team as a dedicated violence against women and girls officer last year.
“Constable King has previous experience in the beauty industry and had a lot of contact with victims and Women’s Aid ... We wanted to find a way to reach more victims,” adds Dornan.
In south Belfast alone, 20 per cent of calls to police are related to domestic violence.
“That’s one call every 16 minutes. We’re a really busy area so that’s a high level of demand,” says Dornan.
The initiative was held a week after Northern Secretary Hilary Benn described Northern Ireland as the “most dangerous” place to be a woman in the UK. Thirty women have died violently in the North over the past six years. In the majority of cases, the killers or suspected killers were known to their victims. In all but one case, the murderers or those charged are men.
For Smallwood, the most important “pointers” given during the training were around language.
“It’s really about being able to listen to people,” she says.
“If someone decides to divulge some personal information, you would never say ‘I’ve heard this before, this happened to someone else’ ... You’ve just got to let them tell you about their concerns.
“You tell them that you believe them.”
A 30-minute drive away, Samantha King – Jodie King’s sister – is between eyebrow tattooing appointments.
King sees up to 20 women a day at her Bangor salon, from teenagers getting their first eyebrow wax to clients in their 80s.
Abuse is an issue discussed several times throughout the week, she says.
“It’s such a diverse age of women with such diverse backgrounds coming in; domestic violence does not discriminate,” adds King.
“Gone are the days where it’s physical abuse you’re looking out for – the neck marks, the black eyes.
“It’s actually having the awareness now about all those silent behaviours, that coercive control.
“Are women being more quiet? Are they watching what they’re spending? Are they cancelling appointments all the time?”
King also attended the Behind the Smile event; there is a “shift” in what’s being done to tackle the issue, she says.
“It’s terrifying to hear the statistics but uplifting to know that good things happen when people come together.
“What I now have the capability to do is to direct women to services: they can go to Women’s Aid or Assist or they can call the police line that’s dedicated to it.
“There’s options.”
Over the past week, there has been a noticeable rise in referrals made to Belfast & Lisburn Women’s Aid, according to Diane Hickey.
Hickey ran her own hairdressing salon for 23 years before leaving to work at a Women’s Aid refuge.
She supports the Behind the Smile campaign and believes it should be rolled out across all public-facing businesses.
“Hairdressers are at the heart of the community, they hear more and see more than a lot of other sectors,” says Hickey, who addressed the event.
Women’s Aid is currently involved in a programme with GP surgeries and also delivers training to medical students.
“Sometimes women are reluctant to report to police but it is important that their abuse is even referenced by a professional to build a bigger picture for the future,” she adds.
“If there was a woman who was fearful and needs to contact us, she can ring us from the hairdressers or beautician. We would come out – we already do this with doctors’ surgeries. We would go to the salon if needed if that’s her only regular appointment. It’s just to find ways that we can help without the perpetrator knowing.”
At the academy in Belfast, McKeown prepares to finish her training before she begins work at a salon in Dundrum. The escalation in violence against women and girls is something she and her friends talk about, she says.
“What’s been happening has changed the way we socialise – we always look out for each other, especially on nights out.
“There’s much more awareness around this but so many bad incidents are still happening.”
