Promoting oral health in child care settings through child care health consultation: The "Healthy Smiles" model

“Healthy Smiles Through Child Care Health Consultation” is an online training course for child care health consultants (CCHCs) on promoting oral health in child care settings. The course was developed through a three-year federally-funded continuing education project and continues to be freely offered by the National Training Institute for Child Care Health Consultants. Healthy Smiles presents the most current research on children's oral health, including common diseases, prevention strategies, access to a dental home, promoting oral health in child care, and oral health for children with special needs. During the final year of the grant (2007), 64 CCHCs nationwide participated in a pilot study of the course to measure its effectiveness in promoting preventive oral health policies and practices in child care facilities. Results from this pilot are encouraging. In baseline surveys, pilot participants reported that 47% of their child care facilities had an oral health policy of any kind. After the Healthy Smiles consultation, 81% of the facilities had at least one oral health policy. Besides increased policies, each of the 64 consultants reported improvements in preventive oral health measures ranging from dental hygiene practices (23% improvement) to record-keeping (21% improvement) to nutritional guidelines (20% improvement) as a result of their consultation. This session will present detailed data from the pilot project and will highlight the design and content of the Healthy Smiles course. The session will also demonstrate how the CCHC can promote oral health for children in child care settings.