Filling the Dental Workforce Shortage by Helping Parents of Low-Income Families Enter the Workforce

Like many states, Rhode Island is facing a serious shortage of all oral health workforce professionals, including dental assistants. A unique partnership of Rhode Island government agencies and nonprofit organizations decided to address the problem by creating a thoroughly unusual but highly effective program. In addition to bringing newly trained professionals into the workforce, the Dental Assistant Partnership Program (DAPP) would help parents from low-income families enter a viable career path that could support their families. In 2006, after three years of planning and overcoming a variety of barriers, the DAPP graduated its first class of five interns. All the interns were recruited from Rhode Island's Family Independence Program (FIP) RIteWorks program, which helps families receiving state cash assistance enter the workforce. In addition to ten weeks of classroom and lab training, volunteer dentists from around the state trained the interns in their dental offices. The DAPP has found stable funding, continues to graduate newly trained dental assistants, and helps find them positions with dentists. This presentation will describe the oral health workforce crisis, the history and design of the program, barriers that must be addressed, and the success of the graduates.