State Level- Head Start Oral Health Partnership

States play an important role in the development and implementation of policies and initiatives that affect low-income families and children including those impacting their oral health. Because Early Head Start and Head Start children and pregnant women are at risk for oral disease, Head Start Programs are required to comply with a number of federally mandated oral health Performance Standards. Yet these Head Start programs can be easily be excluded from oral health policy and implementation discussions at the state level because of the federal to local funding mechanism. State Oral Health Programs, located in most public health departmets throughout the country, often assume a role as the critical link at the state level for the oral health education,prevention and treatment concerns of Head Start programs. Further strengthening and facilitating these linkages is the collaboration of these State Oral health programs with Head Start State Collaboration Offies whose presence at the the state level enables the development of multi-agency and public and private partnerships aimed at benefitting Head Start programs. This presentation will discuss the role the Head Start State Collaboration Offices play in enabling the critially important collaboration between State Oral Health Programs and Head Start programs and how this leads to the provision of dental homes for Early Head Start and Head Start beneficiaries.