Henry Schein Dental UK announced its continued support for the Dental Wellness Trust, a charity that aims to provide dental care and education for children in the UK and internationally. For this year’s initiatives, Henry Schein Dental UK provided financial contributions that will help advance the Dental Wellness Trust’s LiveSmart supervised toothbrushing programme for children as well as its dental outreach programme for child refugees.
Henry Schein Dental UK’s donation will go towards purchasing dental screening materials for the LiveSmart programme, which is designed to address the crisis of child dental health. Initially set up to help communities in South Africa, LiveSmart now reaches 11,000 UK children and teaches them about good oral health. The programme also trains teachers and supervisors on best practices on how to implement LiveSmart initiatives within their schools.
“For more than 10 years, Henry Schein Dental UK has collaborated with the Dental Wellness Trust in its efforts to help improve the general health and wellbeing of young children through dental wellness, specifically for individuals most in need,” said Vikki Goodall, senior director and general manager of Henry Schein Dental UK. “We are committed to helping close the gap of health care inequities by working with organisations that support communities in need, and our mission of ‘helping health happen’ is exemplified through our continued partnership with the Dental Wellness Trust charity.”
Henry Schein Dental UK’s donation will also help provide the materials for dental screenings, examinations, and treatment including fillings and extractions, for children in the refugee community. In December 2021, the Dental Wellness Trust’s dental team carried out fillings of 20 or more teeth for each child screened. In early February 2022, around 350 additional children were screened and taught how to best brush their teeth. The team is continuing to conduct child refugee and schools outreach programmes throughout 2022 to help more children.
“Many children, especially those most in need, suffer the consequences of poor oral health,” said Linda Greenwall, founder of Dental Wellness Trust. “We are grateful to the Henry Schein Dental UK team for their continued support in helping us put an end to this critical public health issue. The right to oral health is a basic human right, yet dental decay is still the most common childhood disease world-wide. We aim to change this through our oral health education programmes, and we are thankful for the many teachers we work with for their total dedication to creating a better world for these children.”
In addition to its financial contributions for dental screening material for 2022 programmes, Henry Schein Dental UK, amongst others, donated a mobile dental van that promotes the importance of oral health and supports dental treatment for children. The van enables greater visibility for the Dental Wellness Trust and its mission to improve the oral health of children throughout the UK.
This initiative forms part of Henry Schein Cares, the company’s corporate social responsibility programme. Henry Schein Cares stands on five pillars: empowering Team Schein to reach their potential, advancing health equity and expanding access to care for underserved communities, accelerating environmental sustainability, strengthening, and diversifying our supply chain, and maintaining strong ethical governance. Health care activities supported by Henry Schein Cares focus on four main areas: (1) wellness, treatment, prevention, and education; (2) capacity building; (3) emergency preparedness and disaster response; and (4) health system strengthening.