Two years ago, pre-school children in Newbiggin-by-the-Sea in Northumberland had one of the highest levels of tooth decay in the country.In a bid to stop the rot, the children's centre run by Sure Start and the charity NCH teamed up with dental health professionals and succeeded in reducing the level of decay by 17 per cent.
Marjorie Charrada, Sure Start programme co-ordinator in Newbiggin, is rightly proud of the reduction and calls it an 'enormous health gain with far less dental treatment being needed' and 'a great boost to the children's personal self-esteem'.
Its success has also been recognised by a Sure Start Partners in Excellence Award for its work in promoting children's well-being.
Spread the message Mrs Charrada believes the success of the programme has partly been down to getting the message out to the whole community.
'We have spread the message through the village and have made sure it has become ingrained in people's lives,' explains Mrs Charrada.
In 2004, 68 per cent of children in Newbiggin-by-the-Sea had suffered from some form of tooth decay by the age of five, according to Peter Wilson, the senior dental officer for the Northumbria Oral Health Promotion Team.
By 2006, this figure had dropped to 51 per cent. Levels in other parts of Northumberland were as low as 18 per cent.
'I knew we had to do something about it,' says Mrs Charrada, who managed to secure funding for the programme from a range of organisations, including the Northumbria Oral Health Promotion Team and Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. Resources such as specially designed tooth-friendly beakers and water bottles are paid for by Sure Start.
The programme places huge emphasis on healthy eating.
'We talk to parents and children about how often they have sugar during the day and whether they have it at bedtime and whether they brush their teeth with fluoride toothpaste every morning and night,' says Mrs Charrada.
The dental health team holds regular talks for both parents and children at the children's centre and neighbouring nurseries.
But the real key to success, according to Mrs Charrada, is making sure that healthy eating opportunities are available so the information can be put into practice.
This means that fruit juice is no longer available in the centre and children are offered water or milk. Toast is offered for snack times and there are regular fruit and vegetable taster sessions with fruit provided as a snack by the parents.
Birthdays are celebrated with a pretend cake, followed by songs and dancing, and stickers are given out as rewards instead of sweets.
Nurseries on board The National Day Nurseries Association would like to see this kind of practice become commonplace.
Last year the NDNA threw its support behind a campaign called 'Stop the Rot' run by a Lancashire dentist, Graham Wilding. He is pushing for all nurseries in the UK to become more tooth-friendly and the campaign already has more than 500 nurseries on board.
'Helping children learn from an early age about the importance of good dental hygiene is vital,' says Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the NDNA.
She believes that nurseries are ideally placed to help children develop good habits that will last a lifetime.'
Meanwhile, in Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, Mrs Charrada is buzzing with ideas on how to further develop the programme.
She wants to create something called the Newbiggin Smile to promote better health in the community. This would involve getting local businesses to adopt the logo and ethos of Newbiggin Smile. Vending machines would be transformed into 'totally healthy choice' providers and there would be a 'Newbiggin Smile' section in what's offered in food shops and on cafe menus.
Mrs Charrada admits, 'All of this would take quite a bit of money and we have very limited budgets. But I hope it happens one day.' NW
