About The Pull Up Barber Project
The Pull Up Barber Project was founded by Kat SoPoetic, a barber, artist, and community care practitioner with more than a decade of experience in the grooming industry. After years of working closely with clients and witnessing how stress, trauma, anxiety, and marginalization show up in the barber chair, Kat recognized a significant gap in how emotional safety, consent, and care were addressed in traditional grooming spaces. This led to formal trauma informed training and the creation of The Pull Up Barber Project.
We challenge the idea that grooming is a luxury.
Our mission is to partner with organizations to deliver free, trauma informed barbering services directly to the communities they serve.
Our vision is to expand this work through a fully equipped mobile barbershop that will allow us to expand our reach and support more people across the Capital Region.
Through our youth barbering program, we offer a hands on course that combines barbering skill building with social and emotional learning, helping young people build confidence, focus, and emotional regulation in a supportive setting. This program focuses on skill building, mentorship, and workforce exposure. The program introduces young people to barbering as a trade and potential career pathway while teaching professionalism, and safety, client communication, consistency, customer service, and pride in their work. The program is trauma informed and relationship centered, meeting young people where they are and supporting both personal and skill development.
We also aim to redefine barbering as a trauma informed art form, creating communities where barbers and stylists are equipped to provide care that is intentional, and affirming. where grooming, confidence, and care are treated as a right, not a privilege.
We are seeking partnerships with community based organizations interested in collaboration, hosting, or funding services and programs.
The Pull Up Barber Project offers on site trauma informed grooming, youth programming, and flexible scheduling whether its one time events, short term programs, or ongoing sessions.
The Pull Up Barber Project is ready to pull up.
Meet The Team:
My name is Kat SoPoetic aka Kat So The Pull Up Barber, a mobile barber, artist, and community care practitioner. I combine my barbering skills with a deep commitment to creating safe, comfortable, and affirming experiences for people who have been overlooked or misunderstood in traditional barbershop spaces.
The Pull Up Barber Project was created to make haircuts accessible for people who cannot make it to, or do not feel safe in, traditional barbershops. Many clients experience anxiety, sensory overwhelm, discrimination, or other barriers that make it difficult to receive the care they deserve.
I bring the barbershop directly to their homes, sidewalks, neighborhoods, and anywhere a haircut is needed. Each appointment is an experience rooted in safety, care, and mindfulness.
I am a licensed barber with a trauma-informed care certification, and I bring this approach into every service and program.
I do not provide therapy or trauma treatment. I provide barbering and education through a trauma informed lens that supports trust, dignity, and emotional safety.
WHY IT MATTERS TO ME
Sitting in a barber chair or salon can be an incredibly vulnerable experience. We trust someone with our appearance, our bodies, and often our stories. Some clients sit quietly, while others open up about breakups, loss, family struggles, or things they have never said out loud before.
People often joke that their barber or stylist is their second therapist, but for many, we are the only space they have to talk. Many people do not have access to therapy, and for some youth especially, the barber is the most consistent adult they see and confide in. Some struggling kids see a barber far more often than they ever see a counselor.
Yet most barbers are not trained to hold space in the ways that are sometimes needed. We are taught technique, not how to navigate grief, trauma, abuse, anxiety, or emotional distress that shows up in the chair. We are always ready for conversation and connection, but we are rarely given tools to respond with intention, care, and awareness.
This is the missing piece.
Most people have never heard of a trauma informed barber to know it is something they need. But it was important to me to become trauma informed and bring this approach into my work. My goal is to offer barbering and education around barbering that acknowledges the humanity of the person in the chair and helps shift the culture of barbering toward greater safety, understanding, and care.
