Salons enlisted to aid domestic abuse victims

BANGOR – Hair salon professionals are in a distinctive position to help people who are in abusive relationships, the state attorney general said Tuesday.

Visiting Pierre’s School of Cosmetology on Broadway, Attorney General Steven Rowe told the students: “You have a good relationship. [Clients] confide with you, and the partner is usually not in the building.”

Rowe was part of a domestic violence workshop Tuesday morning at the cosmetology school and hair salon, which closed for business in order to host the event.

The program is aimed at training hair salon employees about how to handle clients who are being abused.

Twenty women and three men were on hand for Tuesday’s session.

The Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence is working with the Attorney General’s Office to mobilize “salon professionals and others to fight the epidemic of domestic abuse” in Maine, according to a news release.

Hair salon workers have the capability to look for physical signs on a client and they have an established trust with the customer, Rowe told the group.

The effects of domestic violence reach further than the victim and the family, Rowe said.

“Domestic violence affects the economy, because [victims] are not concentrating on work. They can’t sleep at night. They often get harassing phone calls at work,” he said.

Margo Batsie of Spruce Run, a Bangor-based organization that serves those affected by domestic violence, reiterated Rowe’s statement about the causes of domestic violence.

“The only cause is the abuser and the need, the desire for power and control,” she said.

Rowe said drugs, alcohol and stress are only excuses, but the need to exercise control over another human being is the actual reason for violence.

The hair salon professionals engaged in lively discussion about what causes domestic violence, why it happens and why it is difficult to get out of domestically violent relationships.

They shared some domestic violence experiences reported by anonymous clients as well as their own experiences.

“You all can be a source of information,” Batsie told the audience

Amanda Cost of Spruce Run said she was not surprised the audience shared stories.

“We walk into things like this knowing at least half have personal experience,” Cost said.