We were lucky to catch up with Jordan Betts recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jordan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Have you ever experienced a times when your entire field felt like it was taking a U-Turn?
The first time I sat down for Miss Julie’s School of Beauty’s “Assessment and Intervention of Human Trafficking; Through the Lens of Cosmetology,” I was ten years into being a salon owner and stylist. My entire existence in the beauty industry revolved around the emotional and psychological side of being a hairdresser, building relationships and developing trust with our clients. This class blew my mind: Traffickers use the emotional and psychological side of hairdressing to groom and coerce their victims and they exploit hairdressers while they’re at it. Fast forward a few years of volunteering and knew in my heart, I needed to close up shop and began to work with Julie Chapus full time. Using my 15 years of experience in the beauty industry, I am working with Julie to build the first in the nation, trauma-informed, and therapeutic cosmetology school for survivors of s*x trafficking while developing our community programming to dismantle sex-trafficking, one stylist at a time.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Years ago my husband and I were at a conference in Chicago where I met a man who had a program in Cambodia to help survivors of s*x trafficking. I looked at my husband and said, “I am doing this.” I couldn’t very well drop my life and move to Cambodia being a mother of a pre-teen and a business owner, but I knew some day, I’m doing this work. One day my husband, who is also in the beauty industry, comes home and says, “Jordan I met someone today and I gave her your number. She is starting a cosmetology school for survivors of s*x-trafficking right here in Rochester (NY).” I had my first conversation with Julie in the summer of 2019 and I’ve been hooked ever since. I didn’t know what was in store for me, what steps I’d be taking, or what my capacity would be with this idea, I just knew that I was in no matter what.
October 31st, 2024 I walked out of my salon for the last time with the help of my community and woke up the morning of November 1st an official employee of Miss Julie’s School of Beauty. After years of talking and dreaming about this school, it was coming to life right in front of our eyes and it was time for me to make a choice to transition into this new chapter that I was being called to.
We knew we needed to build a solid foundation for our organization that would help us sustain and continue to grow for generations to come. We know that dismantling sex trafficking isn’t an over night process, or even a ten year process, we knew that we needed our community to join in to help us build something that would have lasting impact for our city. We are currently in the process of building our community and survivor-led programming and education. We’ve been working to educate our community on the prevalence of sex trafficking in Monroe County (and the US as a whole), working on getting to the root cause of sexual violence, and empowering salons and small businesses to become more trauma-informed work places.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Over the years as a volunteer with Miss Julie, I began to learn about things like trauma, triggers, and burnout. Little did I know that I was about to hit a true burn out that would flip my world on it’s head. Since the day I opened my first business I knew I wanted to create a safe and brave environment for all of the folks who worked with me either as an employee or a client. I wanted to lead with compassion, but I didn’t know how to safely offer space for folks while keeping myself safe as well. It took me a good 12 years of hustle before I hit my burnout, a burnout that would leave me questioning my existence on this earth and wondering if I would ever feel brave enough to take another step outside. I don’t know if I would be alive today to share with folks if I didn’t have the tools and the skills I was learning. These tools helped and continue to help me come out of the dark places we can go after we experience trauma. I learned and continue to learn how to navigate the triggers or ignitions that come our way on a daily basis, and I’ve learned how to give myself and those around me grace as we navigate life through a reflective and trauma-informed lens. This experience has led me to this place I currently am, in a space where I am gifted the opportunity to share how to hold space for ourselves and our employees, how to truly listen to and love folks where they are, and how to reflect when we are triggered (ignited).
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
So many leaders, including myself, are thrown into leadership or management roles without the tools and the skills to navigate the workplace fires. If I had to pick one piece of advice to share, work on gaining new perspectives instead of pushing ours on others. Ask questions to seek understanding. When you feel frustrated by something your team says, pause and ask yourself why. Start to become more reflective and offer yourself a moment to pause and reflect. Allow yourself the time to feel the frustration, figure out where it came from, and give yourself the grace and the space to process it. Think about it like this; when your team member keeps showing up late switch up your perspective for a minute. Ask questions to seek understanding, why are they always late? Is there an accommodation you can come up with together? Here’s the kicker, when you feel irritation creeping in and start to get annoyed that you would have to accommodate someone who is always late, ask yourself, “Why am I taking this personally? Why am I really annoyed with this?” You’d be surprised at how beautiful life becomes when we let go of control and build together. “No rules about me, without me.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.missjuliesschoolofbeauty.org
- Instagram: @missjuliesschoolofbeauty
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanbettssahr/
Image Credits
Portrait by: Michele Ashlee-Meade, Rochester NY