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Teeth Team

TRANSFORMING SMILES – AND FUTURES!

TEETH TEAM

Award-winning dental education for primary schools

Despite being among the most advanced countries in the world, childhood dental health statistics in the UK are shocking.

  • The proportion of five-year-olds with missing, decayed or filled teeth is as high as 57% in more deprived areas of the country.
  • Four in ten children currently have not seen a dentist in over a year, despite an NHS check-up for under 18-year-olds being free.
  • The number one reason why a child aged five to nine enters hospital is tooth decay and it is one of the main reasons for school absenteeism.

At Teeth Team, we think we can and must do better than this to safeguard our children’s health. If a child has poor oral health, they will likely have poor general health and poor general health can lead to lower educational attainment. Therefore, by addressing oral health, a child’s future can be transformed.

Teeth Team takes dental education directly to children by offering local primary schools an oral health programme designed to raise awareness amongst children and parents of the importance of caring for teeth from a young age.

We help teach children about healthy diets and dental hygiene and we also offer a dental examination and apply fluoride varnish where required. In addition to administering the programme and training oral health educators, we provide free toothbrushes, toothpaste and fluoride varnishes for all the children involved.

Featuring dental superheroes Captain Incisor, Mighty Molar, K9, Baby Toof and Pre-Molar Girl, we help the children learn the importance of keeping their teeth healthy, whilst giving them an entertaining diversion from their daily timetable. This interaction also enables us to identify where there might be need for further intervention.

MEET THE TEETH TEAM

K9

K9

By the time I grow in, you should know how to take care of me!

Baby Toof

Baby Toof

Don’t leave me out! Babies are never too young to visit the dentist.

Captain Incisor

Captain Incisor

Brush me properly to keep me healthy and bright.

Premolar Girl

Premolar Girl

A fluoride varnish can help protect my chewing surfaces.

Mighty Molar

Mighty Molar

Learn how to floss to keep me clean.

With the help of corporate and individual benefactors, Teeth Team has grown into a well-established and nationally-recognised child dental health improvement initiative, facilitated within the City of Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire, in conjunction with 543 Dental Centre. We are a partner under the Smile4Life initiative and, in 2017, we were awarded the first ever ‘Outstanding Innovation’ award from the British Society of Paediatric Dentistry (BSPD).

Like other charities Teeth Team relies on the public’s generosity to maintain its work in schools and to help us reach further into the community. All of our programmes are absolutely free for the participating schools, but of course there are some ‘behind the scenes’ costs.

It costs just £14 per child, per year to deliver the Teeth Team programme, so as you can see a small amount goes a long way.

Thank you!

PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY