As a dental provider, you have the expertise and ability to help children avoid early childhood caries, serious adult dental problems, and invasive treatment.

If you are considering treating very young children and would like to learn more, here are some Rhode Island and national resources that can help. Now is the perfect time to become a valuable member of a young child’s healthcare team!

For more information on how to manage your practice with young children, please click here.

National Online Curriculum for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services:

This free e-learning program provides oral health professionals with basic knowledge and skills related to cultural and linguistic competency, based on the HHS Office of Minority Health's National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health and Health Care (the National CLAS Standards). This free e-learning program gives you the basic cultural and linguistic competency knowledge and skills so that you can:

• Expand your patient base by providing more culturally and linguistically appropriate care to a wider diversity of patients;
• Deliver a higher quality of care to help your patients meet their oral health care goals, while honoring and respecting their cultural beliefs and practices;
• Decrease clinical errors that may arise due to cultural and linguistic differences in communication and differences in oral health literacy;
• Gain essential tools to help recognize and lessen the racial and ethnic health care disparities that persist in oral health.

Bright Futures in Practice: Oral Health Pocket Guide

The National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center (OHRC) at Georgetown University is pleased to announce the availability of Bright Futures in Practice: Oral Health—Pocket Guide (3rd edition). The pocket guide was developed with support from the Maternal and Child Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration.

This pocket guide is designed to be a useful tool for health professionals, including dentists, dental hygienists, physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, nurses, dietitians, and others, in addressing the oral health needs of pregnant and postpartum women, infants, children, and adolescents.

The pocket guide provides health professionals with an overview of preventive oral health supervision and includes information about risk assessment, a tooth eruption chart, a dietary fluoride supplementation schedule, a glossary, and a list of resources.

• In addition to this online version, Bright Futures: Oral Health—Pocket Guide, 3rd edition is also available in a PDF version, which can be downloaded for offline use, for example, in a reading app on a mobile device.