Smile Together was thrilled to support and host the ‘Give Kids a Smile’ initiative during October half term brought to the UK by Henry Schein Dental Group and in collaboration with Colgate.
The aim of the program is to provide essential dental care to children and set them up for a future of oral wellness. Tooth decay is the most common reason for hospital admission in children aged between 6 and 10 years, so at Smile Together our focus is on reducing tooth decay among the most vulnerable in our community by intervention and education.
We’re all about helping our local communities maintain a healthy smile so this perfect partnership saw our teams at Bodmin, Truro and Penzance going all out to make these events as fun and positive as possible for children and their families. Donning their tooth fairy wings, our teams reassured our young patients and made visiting the dentist a memorable experience for the right reasons.
The outcome was fantastic with multiple rooms allowing for check-ups, urgent treatment, fluoride varnish application and oral health education. Not only that but our teams offered face painting, colouring-in pages, origami and Where’s Wally? which the Smile Together team enjoyed just as much as the children did! In total we saw 39 patients across 3 practices in four days – amazing!
After their check-up, the children were given the ultimate oral wellness goody bag full of dental care essentials from both Smile Together and Henry Schein. These included a bookmark with tips to ensure your smile stays tip top and a thank you note printed on seed paper which when planted, grows into beautiful flowers.
Ali Cane, Service Manager at Smile Together said: “Being able to create a fun and friendly atmosphere for the children and their families who attended was so important as often children feel scared or apprehensive about dental visits. There were lots of smiles as patients left after their check-ups and treatments with us. It was such a rewarding day and one of the many reasons why I love my job!”
We were thrilled to be a part of this vitally important healthcare project. Big thank you to all those families who attended, our teams for making the program a success and Henry Schein for helping to make it possible.