Smile Together once again supported the Oral Health Foundation’s month-long national campaign, National Smile Month, joining other oral care organisations across the country to highlight the importance of taking good care of your oral health.
Running from 16th May to 16th June, this year’s overarching theme was “Everyone deserves a healthy smile”, focusing on inequalities within oral health – something we could really get behind! Weekly sub-themes also provided opportunities for discussions around oral health at different life stages, the affordability of oral care, nutrition, the impact of where you live on your oral health, and the links between oral health and general health and wellbeing.
We took to social media to share top dental tips (many of which you can find on our hugely informative Patient Hub) and mark #Dentistry24 which celebrates the work of dental professionals across the globe. We also shared Smiley Selfies, as you can see below!
Our Brighter Smiles team were out and about visiting Cornish primary schools, nurseries and family hubs, providing oral health education to children and their families and applying fluoride varnish to little teeth to help guard against decay. Our Brighter Smiles lead also attended the Tooth Fairy Exchange, an online event hosted by Nottinghamshire Oral Health Promotion Team (aka The Tooth Fairies) where teams across the UK discuss supervised toothbrushing and other oral health promotion work. It proved to be a great opportunity to catch up and share knowledge and ideas.
Following suggestions from our colleagues, we also nominated three of our dental team in the Nominate A Smile competition, which recognises those who go that extra mile to bring a smile to people’s faces. In previous years our Isles of Scilly dentist Michael Twamley and Brighter Smiles Lead Dental Nurse Jo Trevelyan have been recognised in this competition, so best of luck to this year’s nominees!
It’s always so inspiring to see the UK dental community coming together online to raise awareness of oral health issues and highlight the importance of good oral health. Our thanks to the Oral Health Foundation for all their hard work in driving this national campaign – we’re already looking forward to next year!
