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Community Program · Dorchester

The Chair Conversations™

A four-session recovery conversation series inside a working barbershop. No forms. No titles. Pull up a chair.

The Founding Pilot · Complete

Four Sessions. One Barbershop. It Worked.

Built and delivered in under a month, the pilot held eight to nine people every Monday from July 20 to August 10 — through denial, somebody you love, what recovery actually looks like, and what we were self-medicating. When the last session closed, the room asked for more.

Weekly sessions
4
People each week
8–9
Start to finale
< 1 mo
Barbershop
1

The series in brief — all four sessions, the numbers, and the frame.

The Premise

Meeting Health Where It Already Lives

Many people trust the barbershop more than the clinic. The Chair Conversations brings recovery support to the place trust already lives, led by Tyshaun Perryman with the Flipping Clippers barbers.

Engagement is the first intervention.

Before treatment, before a program, before a diagnosis, somebody has to show up and be heard. The series starts there.

The chair is the entry point.

A barbershop chair carries decades of trust. It asks nothing of you. That is what makes honest conversation possible.

The conversation is the treatment.

Each session opens with one question and lets the room answer it. What gets said in the circle stays in the circle.

Inside Session One

This Is What the Room Sounded Like

Session One filled the shop on July 20. Eight people, one circle, and a twenty-nine minute conversation, cut here to four.

Read the full Session One recap

The Conversation · 4 minutes from inside Session One. Real voices, shared with permission.

Inside Session Two

Somebody You Love

Session Two was for everyone carrying it for someone else. Grief walked in on July 27, and the room held it.

Read the full Session Two recap

Inside Session Two · real voices, shared with permission.

Inside Session Three

What Recovery Actually Looks Like

Session Three asked who you picture when you picture someone in recovery. The room answered — a human being — and then proved it by being executives, directors, business owners, and a young person. It opened with breathwork led by Allison Burke of NamaStay Sober.

Read the full Session Three recap

Inside Session Four · The Finale

What We Were Self-Medicating

The finale asked what we were running from. The room named it, and landed on the frame Tyshaun keeps coming back to: recovery is the foundation, human development is the destination. Then the block folded in — an AHOPE naloxone training, a herbal-shop trip, and neighbors who stopped and stayed.

Read the full Session Four recap

Inside Session Four — the finale of the founding pilot.

The Series

Four Mondays. Four Conversations.

Every session stood on its own — one question, and the room answered it. Four Mondays, same chair, same time, at Flipping Clippers in Codman Square.

  1. 01
    Completed · July 20

    We Don't Talk About It

    Awareness · Destigmatization

    “Why is addiction the one thing we go quiet about?”

  2. 02
    Completed · July 27

    Somebody You Love

    Community Healing · Storytelling

    “Raise your hand if addiction has touched somebody you love.”

  3. 03
    Completed · Monday, August 3

    What Recovery Actually Looks Like

    Awareness · Resource Connection

    “When you picture someone in recovery, who do you see?”

  4. 04
    Completed · Monday, August 10

    What We Were Self-Medicating

    Community Healing · Destigmatization

    “Nobody just wakes up one day and decides to become addicted. So what were they running from?”

Partner With the Series

The Chair Conversations is free for everyone who walks in. Organizations and funders keep it that way, and the model is built to travel: more shops, more neighborhoods, more chairs. If your organization wants to be part of it, start the conversation.

The founding pilot was made possible with Flipping Clippers Barbershop, NamaStay Sober, and AHOPE.

Become a Partner

The conversation continues

The next room: The Elephant in the Room — a free weekly series, on Zoom and in person.

See the series

The Room Asked for More

The founding pilot proved the model. The next step is more shops, more neighborhoods, more chairs — and keeping it free for everyone who walks in. If your organization wants to carry it, start the conversation.

Bring It to Your Community

The Chair Conversations™ · Flipping Clippers Barbershop, 483 Washington St, Codman Square, Dorchester