R-2306-18327

Partnership for Children's Oral Health aka Children's Oral Health Network of Maine (Children's Oral Health Network) strives promotes collaboration and innovation to expand the state's capacity to ensure that effective oral health prevention, education, and treatment tools reach all children in Maine.

This proposal is one of 10 selected finalists for the Community and Care Transformation RFP. This Community & Care Transformation project is aimed at increasing access to oral health for children in or entering the child welfare system in Maine.

Children’s Oral Health Network first will pilot the addition of an oral oral health screening and immediate oral health intervention into the comprehensive medical assessment that children are required to receive within the first 30 days of entering the foster care system. Children’s Oral Health Network will partner with their Foster Care committee to determine the most appropriate way to implement this screening and treatment, which may be delivered through telehealth and include interventions like SDF. Comprehensive case management will be part of the new protocol to ensure appropriate treatment of the child following this initial assessment and triage.

Secondly, Children’s Oral Health Network will build upon existing oral health integration projects to build a responsive oral health plan for children already within the foster system. Third, the organization will provide workforce development/education for medical and dental providers, social service personnel, and foster/adoptive caregivers to strengthen their ability to address children’s oral health needs and fourth, aim to grow a culturally informed oral health workforce by adding an Oral Health Navigator role to the organization’s existing youth career development program.

This project was derived in partnership with grasstops stakeholders as well as people in Maine directly engaged in the foster care system as caregivers or as “graduates.” The network itself is comprised of over 100 organizations. For this project, Children’s Oral Health Network will continually convene key partners that include The Maine Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics Foster Care Committee; Adoptive and Foster Families of Maine (AFFM), which is staffed by adoptive, foster, and kinship caregivers statewide; the Youth Leadership Advisory Team and Maine Youth Transition Collaborative, groups made up of youth in the foster system or alumni of the foster system. These stakeholders will oversee all activities of the project, and the group itself will be supported through the Children’s Oral Health Network and a consultant called MCD Global Health, that will track progress of project, schedule and facilitate planning meetings, serve as a technical and clinical advisor, develop protocols and trainings, administer trainings, support field testing, manage project communications, oversee assessment and evaluation, and fulfill all reporting requirements.

The budget for this project is $125,000, which represents 5% of the organization's overall budget. All of the Children's Oral Health staff time for the project will be provided in match funding by the organization. Funding will support community partner engagement in the project, as well as project evaluation.