When someone attends one of Chantelle Branch’s self-love parlors in an Austin church, Branch greets them, hangs their coats and offers refreshments before diving into a workshop, often with the help of an expert.
Through the organization My Fearless Future, these self-love parlors are Branch’s way of supporting and educating survivors of domestic violence and other crimes in an accessible way.
“Once we are in that space and people feel safe to share, those conversations are a really good healing space for women,” said Branch, who started My Fearless Future in Austin in 2018.
Branch previously lived in Austin, but in 2008, spent 9 months living at Family Shelter Service, a women’s domestic abuse treatment center in Wheaton, following years of a physically and emotionally abusive relationship.
Years after Branch left the shelter, she started speaking out against domestic violence and abuse. She joined the Family Shelter Service’s speaker’s bureau in 2016, where she shared her story with donors, and spoke at universities. She said she got a lot of positive response from attendees, who in turn shared their testimonials with her.
“I wanted to create My Fearless Future because I wanted women to, first, just be fearless, to have the courage and the faith to leave,” Branch said. “And you’re going to have to be vulnerable. You’re going to have to be transparent. You can’t just hold it in and never tell anybody because you’re never going to get help.”
Though Branch no longer works at a Chicago salon, she was in the beauty industry for over 25 years and uses what she’s learned to lead her self-love parlors and workshops.
“I take my beauty industry experience and merge that with my counseling and human services background to create emotional wellness spaces,” she said. “I thought of a way to connect domestic violence and people without it being so taboo or so sad.”
Branch has hosted workshops for over 1,000 students. For example, at Christ the King Jesuit College Preparatory School in Austin, she teaches young people about green, yellow and red flags in relationships so they can recognize behavior patterns that are abusive or have the potential to become so.
Branch has also organized students at Paul Mitchell Hair & Beauty School to come to the 15th District police station or a building’s community room to offer services to new moms working with Maryville, a childcare organization that offers family services.
“They’re obviously living in and working with this agency because they need some type of support, more resources and tools,” Branch said of the women who access My Fearless Future’s therapeutic beauty services. “Those are the spaces that we create, that we hold, to help as many women in the community as we can.”
Branch provides a resource she didn’t have
Branch said, when she was figuring out where to take her children so her abusive partner wouldn’t find them, she didn’t know the 15th District CAPS office had an officer assigned to domestic violence cases.
“I just never felt safe calling the police,” Branch said. “For me, there was nobody in my neighborhood that could help me.”
So, through My Fearless Future, Branch provides information to locals about how to get an order of protection or a parenting agreement, and how to navigate shelter or transitional housing – all of which she’s experienced.
“To have that safe space to rebuild – a lot of women don’t have that,” Branch said.
My Fearless Future has helped over 150 women experiencing domestic violence to find such spaces.
And Branch’s work isn’t stopping there, as she’s working with Crime Survivor for Safety and Justice to create legislation.
House Bill 1710 would require Illinois State Police to submit or provide quarterly information about homicides, improving transparency around homicide data. The House passed the bill in April, and it’s now in the Senate. And House Bill 3632 would create the Homicide Victims’ Families’ Rights Act and allow for the review of open, unsolved murder case files.
At the church Branch used to attend in Austin, she noticed there was nothing advocating against domestic violence – no pamphlets with listed resources taped to bathroom stalls or a designated advocate to speak to the congregation. So, Branch shared her domestic violence story with the church in October.
She got positive feedback from other church attendees, who encouraged her to start a support group at the church, which Branch is developing this year.
“I would like to be able to build it and take it to different churches or different groups that have large communities and say, ‘This is how you just begin the journey of emotional and mental wellness.’”
Branch will have a wellness tent at the Westside Community Que on June 14. There, community organizations will share resources and Branch will help those who have experienced a crime to fill out an application for a victim compensation grant, which she said is extremely long and complicated.
“A majority of the people in the community don’t know about it, but it’s been out since 1984,” Branch said. “It’s a grant that will allow you to get assistance if you lost a child that was killed by her boyfriend, a child that was killed in the street, or your spouse.”
“We’re here and we want to help,” Branch added of Westside Community Que participants. “I didn’t hear that when I was going through domestic violence. I didn’t hear that in church or at school.”