Plymouth: community outreach keeping teeth healthy

Two years ago, Spa Dental Plymouth set up a dental education project to help children keep their teeth healthy. The community outreach team, Heather Cresswell and Lorraine Allen, regularly visit schools around the region delivering educational workshops.

When they visit your school, they’ll bring along Henry the Brushasaurus, as well as handfuls of toothbrushes, tubes of paste, timers and dental mirrors.

In fact, so far Heather, Lorraine and Henry have visited 16 primary schools and 11 nursery schools. This means that they have spoken to about 3,340 children!

Heather explains: “Our aim is to educate children about the hidden sugars in our everyday diet. That way, as they grow up, they can put their knowledge of healthy eating and good nutrition into practice. Hopefully an early foundation will help reduce the amount of dental decay and number of dental extractions in their future. We want to help children keep their teeth, gums and mouth healthy.

We absolutely love what we do! And the children are always so great and really want to get involved.

Last week, Heather, Lorraine and Henry spent three days visiting Weston Mill Primary School. The children asked lots of great questions and the team enjoyed interesting conversations about the children’s own experiences of visits to the dentists. Along with the fun and laughter there was also some serious tooth brushing practice.

So their message can spread even further, Weston Mill has invited the team to a parents’ evening in January. There, interested parents will have the opportunity to ask questions about how to keep children’s teeth and gums healthy.

Spit! (Don’t rinse!)

One of the most useful snippets of information the team shares is “Spit!”

The topical application of fluoride to teeth helps protect and even strengthens tooth enamel. Rinsing after brushing means useful fluoride gets washed away. Therefore, it’s best to just spit, so that the fluoride in the toothpaste can stay on the teeth to do good work.

• Read a dentist’s view on why children need fluoride and the advantages of fluoride varnish.
• Screen time can damage children’s teeth
• Back to school dental tips for children of all ages

Lorraine says: “We are always so impressed by how well the children respond to our brushing instructions.”

 

Let us know!

We look forward to hearing from you! Let us help you to help your children keep their teeth healthy.
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SpaDental – working hand in hand with the Plymouth community to educate children – healthy teeth for life

Four SpaDental practices are able to register children as new NHS patients.

All a patient or guardian needs to do is get in touch with the practice.

• Cornwall – SpaDental Saltash
• Somerset – SpaDental Chard,
• Devon – SpaDental Plymouth, and
• Shropshire – SpaDental Whitchurch

Read more about our Plymouth community outreach project:

• Out and about helping children to brush better
• Children’s dental health coordinators go back to school
• NHS children’s dentist offers educational visits