More than 100 children from the Omaha area will be able to show off their smiles this weekend, thanks to Creighton’s participation in Give Kids A Smile Day.
The School of Dentistry is offering free dental exams, teeth cleanings, fluoride treatments and dental radiographs to children ages 3-14 on Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon.
“Most of these are uninsured, underinsured kids, and our task at hand is to give the kids a dental exam, clean their teeth and apply a fluoride treatment as appropriate,” said Dr. Gary Westerman, professor and chair in the department of Community and Preventive Dentistry.
“If we do identify some kids that have some dental needs – and I’m sure we will – we then make an effort to get them into a dental setting where they can continue to further their dental health care.”
Dental School faculty, some of the Dental School staff and a team of at least 60 junior and senior dental students will provide services that morning, Westerman said.
Dr. Anne Aiello, professor and chair in the department of Pediatric Dentistry and Orthodontics, said the event provides an opportunity for students to help another segment of the population that might not get the regular dental care they need.
“If we can make it a good experience for the child and perhaps find some kids that are really in need of some treatment and the parents don’t even know it – I think that’s a huge service for those kids,” Aiello said.
This is the ninth year Creighton has offered the event, but on Saturday a new service will be added to the occasion: CHIP.
CHIP, which stands for Child Identification Program, is a service the Nebraska Freemasons provide to families in case their children ever go missing.
At Give Kids A Smile Day, parents can receive a CHIP kit, which includes a DNA swab, bite impressions and a CD with a video interview, fingerprints and a photo of their child.
“I have worked with this program in the past in other settings, and I thought this would be a good site to have it – we have a lot of kids here,” Westerman said.
“I brought it forward as a suggestion that we at least give the parents the opportunity to sign their kids up to go through the CHIP program.”
Give Kids A Smile Day is a national event sponsored by the American Dental Association.
“A lot dentists in the United States are involved,” Westerman said. “We’re just another pebble in the pond.”
Dr. Edmond R. Hewlett, consumer adviser for the American Dental Association, said the idea for Give Kids A Smile Day is to focus attention on the epidemic of untreated dental disease in low-income children.
He estimated about 500,000 children across the country will benefit from the services provided on Give Kids A Smile Day. He said about 12,000 dentists and 30,000 other members of the dental team, like dental assistants and dental hygienists, will participate.
“In addition to actually providing services, the idea is to focus attention and make people aware – make parents aware, make other healthcare professionals aware, make policy makers aware – that this is a very serious issue,” Hewlett said.