The Community Dental Facilitator Project

The Community Dental Facilitator Project facilitates children's access to existing government funding for dental treatment and access to treatment at local dentist offices. Children in need of treatment are identified by school dental screening. The facilitation work is done by lay health workers hired from within the community. Three facilitators represent predominant ethnic groups from the community, and speak three common languages: Chinese, Vietnamese, and English. Facilitators are trained in the procedures to help families apply for Healthy Kids government funding for dental care. Facilitators work with individual families to determine their eligibility and help families access funding. They aid parents in completing necessary forms and work with the government to expedite the process. After parents have obtained funding, facilitators help them locate a dentist, and in some instances accompany the children to their appointments.

The goal of the Community Dental Facilitator Project is to facilitate access to oral health services among low income, urban children.

The facilitators were successful in acquiring dental benefits for significantly more children than had benefits prior to the intervention (p < 0.001). By the end of the project's first funding period, a greater proportion of children in the facilitator group had secured dental appointments (48.8%) than the control, self-referred group (26.7%). At a one-year follow-up 71.1% of children in the intervention group had completed treatment.