Engaging Families with Supervised Toothbrushing Programmes

Raising awareness of supervised toothbrushing programmes and engaging parents

To promote supervised toothbrushing programmes it’s important that settings and families are aware of what they aim to achieve and how they work. The oral health team and setting can each engage in various efforts to raise awareness of supervised toothbrushing programmes and maintain interest. The following section presents some recommendations based on our research.

Social Media

Being active on social media or website about the programme.

Using social media or your website can raise awareness of a supervised toothbrushing programme with parents. Posts can be used to provide updates, give reminders about the importance of home brushing or link to events such as National Smile Month. Photos or videos can help parents understand what happens when their children brush their teeth at school

Regular Newsletters

Consider whether to send out a newsletter via social media or directly to parents.
It will keep parents updated on what’s been happening within the programme, the songs used, it can also contain tips for brushing at home, facts about sugar and healthy foods, perhaps even links to local dentists.

Coffee Mornings

Parent workshops or coffee mornings may help encourage parent participation. This can be a space to update parents on the progress of their children and the toothbrushing programme, as well as a way of providing support with toothbrushing at home. You could use visual tools such as sugar displays to facilitate discussion around sugar intake, frequency and importance of toothbrushing.

Story Cafés

This is another casual arrangement, in which both parents and children can enjoy learning about oral health in a relaxed setting.

Activities can be linked with the books, so that parents can engage with the kinds of activities the children do in their setting and see what kind of messages the setting is giving to the children, and how they might echo this at home.

Stay and Play Sessions

Much like the story cafés, stay and play sessions can be focused on the topic of oral health, with the activities relating directly to the Early Years Foundation Stage oral health messages.

Language and Cultural Barriers

Consider the community you are serving and if you need to provide different languages to engage parents as well as any cultural concerns to the supervised toothbrushing programme.