On This Episode Of The Public Health Epidemiology Conversations (PHEC) Podcast
Lorenzo Lewis, founder of the Confess Project of America, discusses his journey in promoting mental health awareness and the impact of his organization. The Confess Project trains barbers, stylists, and frontline workers to be mental health advocates, focusing on marginalized and underserved communities. They have trained over 5,000 individuals in 35 states and 63 cities, impacting up to 5 million people per year. Lorenzo emphasizes the importance of collaboration and community engagement in the healthcare sector, and the need for more cultural humility and connection with the community. He also highlights the role of research in increasing the organization's impact and sustainability.
Meet Lorenzo Lewis
Freedom is your birthright.
Social entrepreneur and speaker Lorenzo Lewis models his life around liberation. As the founder and former Chief Visionary Office of The Confess Project, a leading national grassroots movement that empowers barbers and stylists to become mental health advocates for people of color, Lorenzo understands that releasing trauma is the only way to move forward.
In the barbershop, Lorenzo witnessed the intersections of poverty and violence and learned that people need more support—they need pathways to careers, wealth, and liberation. He helped create a revolution in mental health and in turn, it led him to look deeper inside himself.
Born in jail to an incarcerated mother, Lorenzo struggled with depression and anxiety throughout his youth. At 17, he almost re-entered the system of mass incarceration he had come from. It was then he snapped in and began his journey to wellness.
It started with an education at Arkansas Baptist College and continued with him facing his own emotional challenges, eventually becoming a mental health advocate and changemaker. Since then, Lorenzo has given talks at numerous entities across the country—Snapchat, Google, ADCOLOR, Stanford University, and Texas Rangers, to name a few. He is also a two-time TEDx speaker.
Building upon the work he has done over the past 15 years, Lorenzo is now dedicated to the empowerment, wealth-building, and wellness of others. His passion to help underserved folks like himself break into the free market led him to partner with Crown Cutz Academy founder Craig Charles to create Uplift Barber and Beauty Academy, the first barber school in the country that incorporates mental health and entrepreneurship into the curriculum.
Lorenzo believes building generational wealth is key and has launched several family businesses that not only generate opportunities for his wife and daughter but help everyday folks succeed. Additionally, his parent nonprofit L&J Empowerment is focused on juvenile justice and workforce development.
Community comes first in all of Lorenzo’s endeavors—whether it's the people he serves or the talent he hires. He believes that when you empower individuals, you empower the community. His book, Jumping Over Life’s Hurdles and Staying in the Race, threads together these lessons to tell a story of how he became the visionary he is today.
Now, his story continues. Committed to fighting for his freedom and others, his unconventional experiences give him a unique perspective to explore the ultimate questions he seeks to answer in his work—how we connect, how we heal, and how we thrive.
Listen To This Episode Of The Public Health Epidemiology Conversations (PHEC) Podcast
Conversation Highlights
Lorenzo’s mental health journey, from depression to losing both his parents before turning 21
How The Confess Project is fostering mental health advocacy in marginalized communities
Their curriculum; how it’s informed by dialectical behavior technique (DBT) principles
A breakdown of The Confess Project’s impact and how they measure success
The new Confess Health Initiative; how it aims to work with hospitals and emergency rooms
Key partnerships; including government agencies, hospitals, schools, and non-profits
The central role of barbers, stylists, and frontline workers in The Confess Project
An overview of their team and the diversity of their expertise and experience
How Lorenzo’s understanding of public health helps him better serve the community
Advice to aspiring public health professionals on being bold and navigating imposter syndrome
“[The Confess Project has] trained over 5000 in the last eight years, in 35 states and 63 cities. Right now, we're impacting half a million people per month, up to 5 million people per year.” — Lorenzo Lewis
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DrCHHuntley LLC is a public health consulting firm that specializes in epidemiology consulting, supporting large nonprofit organizations in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Florida that serve Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). We also provide nationwide public health consulting and epidemiology consulting support to BIPOC organizations across the United States.