Fluoride Varnish Training at Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program

On March 25^th Innovations in Oral Health conducted an Oral Health Risk Assessment Workshop at Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program (BHCHP). An adapted Smiles for Life presentation and caries risk-assessment were taught to students as part of the oral health and primary care integration co-operative education program. Days later, on March 27th, we returned and partnered with Gretchen Nahkala, RDH and held a fluoride varnish training workshop for four Bouvé co-op students and a practicing Physician Assistant currently working at BHCHP, as well as our research assistant, Alison Goodkind. This was the final of a series of workshops aimed to teach students about the importance of oral health as a central component of primary health care. Mrs. Nahkala developed the 90-minute workshop based on the online oral health curriculum, Smiles for Life, and utilized photos, videos and live demonstration to teach the students how to perform fluoride varnish application.  Students also learned about Early Childhood Caries (ECC) and the benefits of fluoride, before pairing up and performing peer-to-peer fluoride varnish application.