1712-13607

This grant provides continued support to the School Based Health Alliance (SBHA) to provide backbone support to the expanding school oral health learning community and participating school districts, as they work to drive, implement and spread greater innovation, action, and change in strengthening and advancing oral health in school-based settings. Seven of the ten largest school districts, and seven additional districts supported by local funding, are currently engaged in a learning collaborative that focuses on effective strategies for increasing consent rates as a proxy for family and school engagement. In addition to providing a forum for sharing best practices and promising innovations, SBHA convened key stakeholders and developed resources to be shared with interested groups. This renewal grant supports SBHA to continue in this role. Specifically, SBHA will continue to facilitate monthly action calls on topics specific to promoting the development and sustainability of school-based oral health activities; partner with national and state groups to develop a standardized set of school oral health measures using its data portal; convene school districts and key partners during an oral health pre-conference session at its annual meeting; and develop and disseminate resources that promote school oral health. The project has the potential to support improvement across all four systems, and will help achieve the Oral Health 2020 goal of incorporating oral health into primary education system and the target of having 10 largest school districts incorporate oral health into their systems. $350,0001 will be used to support staff time, consultant services, travel and meeting expenses, office operations, and other indirect costs associated with the implementation of this project.