Beauty in Wellness Advocacy Training Program

The Cause

The Beauty In Wellness Advocacy program will be a virtual training program designed just to equip beauty professionals (hairstylists, aestheticians, tattoo artists, etc..) in Northern Alberta with Mental Health First Aid training and specialized wellness resources to develop a stronger network of support in the communities they serve. Beauty professionals have always been a shoulder to lean on and are often referred to as counsellors yet they get no training to support themselves, their community or their clients in managing the challenges of life or the weight this role inherently brings.
This 3 day training program will provide a number of beauty professionals in Northern Alberta with Mental Health First Aid training at no cost as well as a specialized workshop and customized mental health resources. All of this will be designed to support this specific population to become advocates for mental health in their workspaces and impact the hundreds of clients they are in direct contact with should they have the opportunity to support a coworker or client with declining mental health or substance use problems. The training program facilitator is a suicide loss survivor, mental health first aid educator and beauty professional of over 20 years.

Who Will it Benefit?

The Beauty in Wellness Advocacy Training will benefit a number of communities in Northern Alberta through the hub of beauty spaces, where most every person visits either from time to time or regularly. It will empower a number of beauty professionals, each from a different location in a unique community, to provide peer support to their coworkers; an under resourced population that works most often with little to no benefits, long hours, physically demanding environments and mentally exhausting circumstances all leading to burnout and increased risk of mental health challenges. Beauty in Wellness Advocates will also be empowered with resources to support the guests of each business by having customized resources available to share with anyone who shows signs of declining mental health. The impacts of providing this training at no cost to eligible advocates will reduce financial strain on a population of service providers who are often considered essential workers, without many of the supports.