Rainbow Room International Partner with Action for Children

Rainbow Room International is excited to be partnering with Action for Children, a charity that protects and supports children and young people, providing practical and emotional care and support, ensuring their voices are heard and bringing lasting improvements to their lives.

The partnership will see Action for Children delivering training to Rainbow Room International Director’s, management, and salon teams, focussing on Mental Health. The collaboration will also see Rainbow Room International provide a group of youngsters from the Action for Children charity with hairdressing training to help them achieve a level 1 qualification in hairdressing over an 8–10-week period.

The Rainbow Room International team have already started their training programme with the charity, whereby they have partaken in courses including First Aid for Mental Health SCQF Level 5, to identify signs of mental health distress and providing advice and starting a supportive conversation. They have also taken part in online training developed by NHS Health Scotland and NHS Education for Scotland ‘Ask Tell Save a Life: Every Life Matters’ to support suicide prevention and raise awareness of the issues that affect people, which can sometimes lead to them thinking about taking their own life. The Rainbow Room International team will also take part in further training ranging from Suicide Prevention to Self-Harm Awareness, with the aim that every Rainbow Room International stylist will have mental health qualifications and apprentices will have wellbeing and mindfulness courses throughout their apprenticeships.

In June, Rainbow Room International will welcome a small group of youngsters from the Action for Children charity to start their hairdressing level 1 qualification. Youngsters will firstly be welcome to the Rainbow Room International Academy to meet the team and for talks about the opportunity and training programme, with the Rainbow Room International team sharing personal experiences to build connection and engagement. A wellbeing morning with mindfulness activities will also be scheduled in to further build a connection before the youngsters embark on their hairdressing journey. At the end of the 8-10 weeks, the young people will all receive certificates and will have a portfolio of work allowing them to progress in their hairdressing career if they wish. All youngsters will also get the opportunity to take part in work experience throughout the training period to further adapt their hairdressing skills and give them more confidence being in a hairdressing environment.

Leigh Kerr, Rainbow Room International Academy Director, commented:

At Rainbow Room International our priority plan this year, particularly after the effects of the pandemic, is to focus on the mental wellbeing of all of our teams. The training provided by Action for Children has been invaluable to us, allowing us to be a lot more knowledgeable on mental health and how we can help and support ourselves, our teams, and our clients. As hairdressers, communication is a key part of our role with our teams and clients and this training has helped us to understand how we can communicate more effectively, particularly regarding sensitive subjects. We now have 12 fully qualified Mental Health First Aiders, and all of our Rainbow Room International teachers and management were involved in the Mental Health Awareness courses.

It has been an incredible and insightful partnership with Action for Children so far and we are all looking forward to continuing the training courses throughout the year. We also look forward to welcoming the youngsters and helping them to achieve their Level 1 Qualification in hairdressing. The training will provide them with indispensable hairdressing skills, give them a deeper insight into the hairdressing industry and the opportunities available to them should they wish to continue a career in hairdressing and also help them to build their confidence.

Commenting, Paul Carberry, Action for Children Director for Scotland, said: “We are proud to launch this collaboration with Rainbow Room International.

Over the course of this partnership, a group of young men we support at Action for Children will become qualified in hairdressing while, at the same time, staff from Rainbow Room International will gain mental health first-aid training.

 The last year or so has been challenging for everyone. We know one of the major fallouts of Covid-19 has been the negative impact on people’s mental health. It is our hope that this partnership will, at the very least, allow more people to be able to talk about their mental health, often an important first step in itself.