Styling Future Hair Braiders

Styling FutureHAIR BRAIDERS

McComb Program Provides Blueprint for State-Approved Natural Hair Care and Braiding Curriculum

Brock Turnipseed

Natural hair care and braiding is a billion-dollar industry supported by everyone from teenagers to adults in places such as salons, homes and dorm rooms.

Natural hair care and braiding methods can vary and are learned in cosmetology courses, on the internet and through YouTube and social media videos.

Deidre Thompson was a student at Southwest Mississippi Community College (SMCC), but she had to pause her education to take care of her two children: son Ladamian Burton, who was six years old at the

Left: Sophomore Cedasia Martin shows the heart-shaped stitch braids and butterfly locs she completed in the McComb Business and Technology Complex’s (MBTC’s) natural hair care and braiding program. Right: Sophomore Tia Bush works on scalp braids during the natural hair care and braiding class. Opposite page: Thompson watches as sophomore Tyteyana Barnes works on knotless braids in her natural hair care and braiding class.

time, and infant daughter LaDasney Burton.

To support her young children, the Magnolia native started braiding hair in her apartment and realized she had a talent for the skill.

Thompson earned a license in wigology — one of only three people in Mississippi to do so. She wanted to teach the practice but could not without a cosmetology instructor license. However, her license did allow her to teach braiding if all of the wigology components were removed.

Over the course of her career, she saw many using outlets such as YouTube and social media to learn braiding skills. She realized they needed to learn the safety procedures and professional side of the field. In 2005 she opened Diva Stylz Braid School to teach her skills to others, even receiving a grant to support those students who couldn’t afford the class.

Thompson recognized a need to reach more students, whether in a high school setting or a cosmetology program, so she earned her cosmetology instructor license.

“I wanted them to learn these skills in high school because I knew they would be there every day,” Thompson said. “I wanted the students, by the time they got out of 12th grade, to have the skills to be able to step out and open their own shop, work in someone else’s salon or do hair in their dorm room.”

With that license in hand, she sought out Robert Biggs, director of the McComb Business and Technology Complex (McComb School District), about starting a natural hair care and braiding program.

Coincidentally, Biggs said his center was trying to find a program that would fit McComb’s demographics since parts of the cosmetology program were better suited “beyond the secondary setting.”

“We were trying to figure out something that would benefit our students and give them a decent way to make a living at the same time,” Biggs said. “Someone sent (Thompson) to me. She said ‘I would love to teach what I do off-campus to your kids,’ which was how to braid hair.”

While cosmetology requires many hours to receive a certification, hair braiding simply required a license through the Mississippi Department of Health and a $25 fee.

For the 2019-2020 school year, Biggs got the program into the center as a credential-only program for seniors who had completed their academic requirements. Those students took a year-long block course at the

end of the day to work toward a hair braiding certification.

He expanded the program to underclassmen last year, teaching the state-approved cosmetology standards with a larger focus on natural hair care and braiding. Beginning with the 2022-2023 school year, students will be able to take natural hair care and braiding as a two-year, skills-based program with a curriculum approved by the Mississippi State Board of Education.

Biggs and Thompson served on the curriculum’s writing team with cosmetologists across the state and representatives from Milady, the organization that wrote the curriculum’s supplementary textbook.

“The curriculum will give the structure needed for the program to be successful. It’s more than hair braiding skills. It’s also the business skills, the entrepreneurship portion and leadership skills,” Biggs said. “At the same time, it’s a stepping-stone into cosmetology and gives students the opportunity to see if that’s really something they want to pursue. From my perspective as an administrator, it was what is safe, doable and doesn’t conflict with what the cosmetology board requires for those programs?”

Melissa Luckett, a project manager at the Mississippi State University Research and Curriculum Unit who oversaw the natural hair care and braiding curriculum process, said braiding was the initial focus, but the natural hair care aspect was needed as an important part of the braiding process.

“Natural hair care is completely different from cosmetology because it uses no chemicals,” Luckett said. “We initially thought about braiding because so many young girls were already doing it on their own.

Students in the MBTC natural hair care and braiding program work on their skills under the guidance of instructor Diedre Thompson.

The taskforce decided to add natural hair care because the whole point of braiding is keeping the hair natural and chemical free.”

The current state-approved cosmetology curriculum and what Thompson had implemented in McComb drove the new curriculum. Luckett said the taskforce “took those two elements and removed anything that required cosmetology regulations.”

With many students already doing braiding, the new program helps them get excited about coming to school and taking career and technical education courses.

“Students have already been doing this, but now there is a program that allows them to learn how to braid safely and run a successful business. It’s going to make students more excited,” Luckett said.

Thompson, who went back to school and completed an associate degree from SMCC in May, said her students enjoy coming to her class, and she takes pride in teaching them the skills to help them succeed either in a cosmetology program or in a natural hair care and braiding career.

“A lot of young girls know how to braid, but I teach them the professional side — how to do client consultations, how to manage money, how to keep up with supplies, how to dress professionally, how to be on time,” Thompson said. “I have been blessed with an opportunity to change these students’ lives with the skills I love. I want them to have these skills so if life throws them off, they can use these skills to work toward what they want to do with their life.”

Having seen the program’s impact on her students, Thompson knows the natural hair care and braiding program and curriculum will allow more students to be college and career ready.

“It’s a skill that I embrace because it took care of me for 33 years,” Thompson said. “I know it will take care of you until you get to the point where you decide if you want to be a cosmetologist or do something else. I want it in every school because I know it will benefit these (students).”