New Mobile Dental Van For Underserved Children Celebrates Children?S Dental Health Month

Toni Borrero

Annie Bayne

Children’s Aid Society

Columbia University

Columbia University

917-286-1548

212-305-4930

212-305-9746

NEW MOBILE DENTAL VAN FOR UNDERSERVED CHILDREN

CELEBRATES CHILDREN’S DENTAL HEALTH MONTH

-- Dental Experts Discuss the State of Oral Health Among NYC Youth

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What: The Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery’s

Community DentCare Network and The Children’s Aid Society (CAS) have joined

forces to bring a new mobile dental van with comprehensive diagnostic,

preventative and restorative dental care to pre-school children in low-income

neighborhoods of Northern Manhattan including Washington Heights and Harlem.

The new state-of-the-art dental van will see twice the number of children

as the old CAS Van and will travel to Head Starts, family daycare and elementary

school programs to provide direct onsite dental service to an estimated

3,500 children, without requiring that their parents lose wages or take

time off for dental appointments.  This project goes beyond the screening

and referral services of similar dental mobile van programs by providing

on-the-spot complete dental services.

The new van will feature

two dental chairs, as opposed to the existing van’s one, allowing the dentists

to serve more children and to see them more quickly.  Each organization

will provide a dentist to staff the van.  The dentists will continue

to provide a range of dental services including cleanings, fluoride, fillings,

oral home care instruction and dental education.  In addition, the

new van includes space for a Community Voice’s outreach worker to enroll

people in health insurance.

Who: Experts in the field of pediatric dentistry as well as [NAME],

a 10-year veteran on the van, will be on-hand to discuss the dramatic effects

the van services have had on the community’s youth, particularly among

immigrant children.  Also, community leaders, Head Start children

and their parents will be available to comment on the program.  Speakers

will include:

· Dr. Allan Formicola, Dean of the Columbia School of Dental

and Oral Surgery

· Philip Coltoff, Executive Director and CEO of The Children's

Aid Society

· Dr. Donna Rumberger, President of the New York Dental Association

· Dr. Joseph McManus, Director of Dentistry for The Children's

Aid Society

· Dr. Mitchell Lewis, Assistant Professor of Dentistry for Columbia

University

When:  Wednesday, February 21, 2001

· Speaker Presentations:  9:30 a.m.

· Ribbon-cutting/van tour: 10:00 a.m.

Where: North Presbyterian Head Start Center

531 West 155th Street (between Broadway & Amsterdam Avenue)

*The Columbia University Community DentCare Network is a collaboration

between the Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery, Harlem

Hospital Dental Service and community-based organizations in the Washington

Heights-Inwood and Harlem communities to provide full dental services to

underserved communities, train community based dental practitioners and

dental hygienist, as well provide preventative dental care for HIV/Aids

patients. The Community DentCare Network, when completed, will provide

more than 30,000 patient visits a year to the residents of northern Manhattan.

**The Children’s Aid Society was founded in 1853. It is one of the nation’s

oldest and largest non-sectarian agencies, serving over 120,000 of New

York’s neediest children and their families with a network of services

that include community schools, neighborhood centers, camps, adoption and

foster care services, teen pregnancy prevention, education, health and

recreation.

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