Training of school promoters on oral health
Innovation is based on the training of students of the fifth and/or sixth grade of elementary school (children between 11 and 13) as school promoters of oral health. The difference with others projects is that we work with children and not adults, because they are better multipliers of the information and they engage more with the work they develop according to studies we carried out in schools. Thus, the service of dentistry education and prevention for all children in school is more accessible since it is done at the school and therefore all children participate and becomes a massive activity, and the service is offered as a human resource of the school community. The service offered is much more simple and different since it is based in health education and prevention specific of diseases which lowers the cost considerably.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Focus of activity
Service/process
Year the initiative began (yyyy)
1996
Positioning of your initiative on the mosaic diagram
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Health care not consumer friendly
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Push work down the chain of command
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic:
This field has not been completed
Name Your Project
Training of school promoters on oral health
Describe Your Idea
Innovation is based on the training of students of the fifth and/or sixth grade of elementary school (children between 11 and 13) as school promoters of oral health. The difference with others projects is that we work with children and not adults, because they are better multipliers of the information and they engage more with the work they develop according to studies we carried out in schools. Thus, the service of dentistry education and prevention for all children in school is more accessible since it is done at the school and therefore all children participate and becomes a massive activity, and the service is offered as a human resource of the school community. The service offered is much more simple and different since it is based in health education and prevention specific of diseases which lowers the cost considerably.
Innovation
Define the innovation
Innovation is based on the training of students of the fifth and/or sixth grade of elementary school (children between 11 and 13) as school promoters of oral health. The difference with others projects is that we work with children and not adults, because they are better multipliers of the information and they engage more with the work they develop according to studies we carried out in schools. Thus, the service of dentistry education and prevention for all children in school is more accessible since it is done at the school and therefore all children participate and becomes a massive activity, and the service is offered as a human resource of the school community. The service offered is much more simple and different since it is based in health education and prevention specific of diseases which lowers the cost considerably.
Context for Disruption:
It is transforming the traditional way of offering oral health because it does not cover what it has been done traditionally in the field of health which is to heal; the innovation is based in the Promotion of Health and its two fundamental pillars, health education and prevention of diseases. Moreover, the adults have always been taken into account, for instance in the case of schools where teachers were required to develop various programs, but without the appropriate effectiveness maybe due to the same reason that they do not have the adequate time nor the acquired engagement. With our Program the situation changes because it is the child, who belongs to that scholar community and is engaged to it, who is the one affected by the critical health situation in which we are immersed, the one that in this case will be trained as a Promoter of oral health and will develop an important work such as carry out, accompanied by a more qualified staff, education and prevention programs of oral diseases in their schools to the rest of the children of the elementary grades.
Delivery Model
The initiative achieves to reach the beneficiary population in a direct manner. On the first place, six children from fifth or sixth grade are selected in each school to be trained as Promoters. The parameters of selection are agreed among teachers based on responsibility, leadership, vocation, among others. Once trained by qualified staff, a Program of talks is developed for all classrooms on basic aspects for oral care and prevention. Moreover, each child is checked for cavities and is given a report on their oral health. On top of that, they also receive as specific preventive treatment a topical application of fluorine to help prevent cavities. Thus, with six trained children and two people linked to dentistry (dentists, students, dental assistants) 500 children per school can be assisted directly n three days approximately, and in an indirect way 1,500 people that are related to each child assisted that in average receives the information on how they should take care of their mouth and teeth. This we measure through surveys where we collect the information managed by people of the family group and through which we can confirm that they manage knowledge that has been brought home by the child that listened to the explanation at school.
Key Operational Partnerships
In this job it is basic the association with schools because it is the people that make life in them the ones that accept or not the programs that we offer. We have also worked with a company this past year that commercializes dental products (ORAL-B) so that the strategic alliance was successful since it was established a synergy and a win-win situation since we were able to increase considerably the number of children assisted and they were able to work with programs on social responsibility at a low cost and advertising indirectly their products. We have also established agreements with institutions such as Fé and Alegría and this last year we were able to assist 7,000 children in elementary school distributed in 12 schools belonging to that network.
Impact
Financial Model
The Program of training of school Promoters on Oral Health is financed by companies and institutions that make the necessary contribution be it in cash and/or as gifts-in-kind.
On the other hand, the association with schools has allowed us to directly marketing the program among those interested, the students. At a very low cost each child can receive the educative and preventive treatments that the Program offers (cavity treatment, educative talk, topical application of fluorine, a report on the clinical exam that was done to treat the cavities, and written information on the care practices that must be followed in order to improve oral health). In some cases, the contribution made by each child to receive treatment is the result of campaigns of collection that trained Promoters organize. To give an example, at a particular school the Promoters organized a big piggy bank in the shape of a tooth and during three months 370 children of that school deposited 500 Bolivares each month until reaching 1,500 Bolivares.
What is your annual operating budget?
60
What are your current sources of revenue? (please list any sources that are foundation grants)
The mechanisms are direct, this means the company makes the specific contribution to the programs to be developed and children make the contribution for the treatments they are going to receive. Since these are direct contributions they should be maintained in order to assure sustainability over time. We are giving companies the opportunity to fulfill their social responsibility which is a law, and to the users, the beneficiary children, so that they take responsibility on their health and through this minimum contribution can feel part of the process.
Effectiveness
• More than 40,000 Venezuelan children and youth know, manage and apply oral health, disease and prevention, which has helped them improve their oral health.
• More than 40,000 Venezuelan children and youth that have received preventive dental treatment (topical applications of fluorine)
• Approximately 120,000 people have benefited indirectly
• 130 pre-school, first and second stages of elementary education (1st to a 6th Grade), where knowledge has been distributed and preventive treatments have been applied during the school year to prevent the appearance and/or advancement of the most common oral diseases: cavities and gingivitis
• 330 Venezuelan youth have been trained as Promoters that execute educative and preventive programs in their own educative centers.
• 330 Venezuelan youth that have planned and executed activities of multiplication of their knowledge as school Promoters of oral health, to train their school community on techniques on dental brushing, dental hygiene, and prevention of diseases.
I feel that in this way we have had an important impact since we are starting to change the way of offering a health service, substituting the traditional way which has focused on the healing aspect with a much higher cost and little effectiveness on the coverage of assistance, for a way in which people participate directly, they share responsibility at a cost at least ten times lower, increasing considerably the coverage.
Which element of the program proved itself most effective?
The fact that the population, in this case the school community, can think about the preventive aspect as a fundamental factor on health. And this is demonstrated in the motivation that child promoters and every child in each schools show towards the programs. How they start to lose fear to achieve oral health and discover that they themselves can fulfill an important task to achieve their own wellbeing. Every dentistry university student that does an internship with us have acquired social sensitivity and have seen the career not only as lucrative but also as social and that their role must be that of health Promoter (currently 250 students of universities in Caracas)
Number of clients in the last year?
This school year that finished in June, the coverage of the Programs was as follows:
1- Trained promoters: 120 in 20 schools (6 children of fifth grade per school)
2- Children assisted directly at schools with the educative/preventive program carried out by school promoters: 9,832 in 20 schools
3- People that benefited indirectly with the information given to children: Approximately 30,000
4- Dentistry students that did internships in the Foundation: 35 students of first, third and fifth year.
What is the potential demand?
The potential demand of the project is that at least 20% of the 6,000,000 of students that exist in our country can be involved with the programs. We say this because more and more the cost of healing treatments is higher and it will be more difficult to pay for them and there will not be a fair offer of the healing services required. Moreover, with our work and even though it has been an important limitation, we aim to change the mentality of the population towards prevention which will encourage a greater number of people to look for services focused towards prevention and here we are as pioneers on the offer of such services.
Scaling up Strategy
During the next three years the strategy is to advertise the Institution and the work it develops in favor of oral health among school students. For this purpose I have been putting into practice for a year a strategy to visit mass media centers. The response has been very positive and I am looking for a massive publicity free of charge trying to manage the name of the Institution as a brand so that it is present in the population and be recognized as a brand that offers quality products and as an alternative of dental services.
Stage of the initiative:
1
Expansion plan:
In the next years the strategy will be one of expansion. I will work in favor of finding partners of different sectors to expand the work and we already started working for this. In the short term, the expansion at the local level is imminent since Fe and Alegria have schools in almost every state of Venezuela, which means our presence in them is already proposed. We are also communicating with other companies apart from ORAL- B that due to State obligations have to contribute to programs of social responsibility and they are interested in this innovative program due to the cost benefit in relation to their investment. Therefore, this would give the necessary capital to work with schools that belong to the public sector in different states of the country where those companies are located. There are also conversations with a local insurance company and we are studying the possibility of putting together a package and offer it to private schools as part of school security for children.
As a proposal that goes beyond the local, it is excellent to keep on working with organizations such as Fe and Alegria since both of them are international institutions so that the doors to be able to export the proposal it is made easier and feasible.
Origin of the Initiative
The initiative started 12 years ago when I called three colleagues to suggest them the idea and share what the four of us already knew and wanted to do, which was to offer dental assistance in a different way. In 1996 we founded an association called FIPO, currently known as Healthy Mouth Foundation, that worries about the high levels of dental diseases and poor public health policies.
From that moment on I thought the school population was the chosen one because it was the one that had the least assistance and that is when I designed the Program of Oral Health School Promoters. Since it started until today it satisfies me to see how these Promoters are responsible for the work they do in spite of their young age, and how this is the best motivation for children, to have an important participation in any career they want to pursue.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
What are your two main challenges to finance the growth of your initiative
Maybe, the most important obstacle has been that in the country there is little preventive culture so there is little initiative to support and share proposals that consider prevention as a basis. On the other hand, oral health is not a priority field, so people prefer to worry about other issues that wrongly consider more important. Due to both causes, people do not make an effort to contribute to develop this type of program, which decreases the economic growth of the organization. If 20% of the parents of the 6,000,000 students in the country would be interested in contributing $ 1 for a year for his/her child’s treatment, the institution would generate $1,200,00, a considerably large amount of money to grow.
How did you hear about this contest and what is your main incentive to participate?
I found out because a person that works in Ashoka sent me the information and I was motivated to participate because I believe it is important that the initiative has publicity and I think it is the right medium to obtain it.
The Story
Do you have an annual financial statement?
Not so detailed, to be honest. In this sense we need more organization.
Do you currently have an annual financial statement that tracks profit/loss?
We have something very basic, a book of monthly revenue and costs to keep fiscal control that helps us and backs us at the time of presenting the annual declaration of taxes on rent, which we do but do not pay because we obtain the exoneration of the payment.
Please describe the amount (and/or type) of funding you need to implement your initiative, at year 1 and at year 5.
Currently, we would like to cover a greater population (over 9,000 children). This year we would like to increase ten times that amount (100,000 children assisted) which would have a cost of $100,000. The fifth year we would like the amount of assisted children to be 20% of the Venezuelan elementary school students (1,200,000), which means we would need approximately $1,400,000.
We talk about those amounts because it is the only way to cover the operational costs that derive from assisting that amount of children. When we talk about operational costs we talk about salaries of professional dentists, dental assistants, students and even child promoters. We also have to cover all the costs related to dental material. When we talk about those quantities of children, they will be distributed over the national territory and we will have to cover travel expenses. The physical spaces for the offices will have to be bigger so the rent will be higher.
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