1702-12967

California: Support to Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE) to act as a lead convener in the Los Angeles (specifically the South LA) community as part of the Grassroots Engagement Strategy. SCOPE believes that those who are most directly affected by structural inequities should themselves be actively involved in defining and implementing effective strategies for achieving systemic change. Therefore, organizing an active base and developing leaders and political consciousness among low-income communities of color is at the core of how SCOPE builds power. Over the past two years SCOPE has employed this approach to engage community members around their Oral Health 2020 Grassroots Engagement Strategy project. They have conducted listening sessions and community conversations about health disparities with members from their South Los Angeles base and learned directly from them about the issues and barriers they face with regard to oral health care. Through door-to-door surveys, listening sessions and town hall forums, and by conducting on going Power Analysis sessions, SCOPE has also identified grassroots members who are interested in becoming actively involved in the effort to build a community-driven oral health movement. Through their community-driven processes and multiple discussions with core group members, the following priorities have emerged from their collaborative priority setting process: 1) Develop an oral health workforce pipeline, such as a dental therapist or Promotores/ Community Health Worker career model; and, 2) Develop a quality standards consumer rating system, with specific indicators around the barriers faced by constituents, including affordability, accountability, access, quality and cultural competencies. Continued Oral Health 2020 investment of $100,800 will support the development of an oral health workforce pipeline to address employment barriers faced by SCOPE’s communities by creating sectoral jobs with career ladder and training opportunities that take into account systemic and cultural barriers, and the development of a consumer rating system to create a more equitable standard with regard to access and affordability of the oral health care system for SCOPE’s constituents who are not able to access high quality, affordable and culturally competent dental providers. This proposal aligns with the Oral Health 2020 Goal 6 of improving the public perception of the value of oral health to overall health and the target that oral health is increasingly included in health dialogue and public policy.