Community Outreach / Collaborations

While providing a unique service, Dientes also collaborates successfully with many local organizations.

We accept referrals from many local nonprofit organizations, hospitals, and health centers.  Additionally, we collaborate with the Early Intervention Program and Homeless Persons Health Project programs, receiving contract funding to treat uninsured HIV and homeless patients, respectively.

In addition to our collaborations within the Dental Affinity and Children’s Outreach programs, we also have many other active partnerships:

Skilled Nursing Facilities

We are pleased to reach out further to seniors and disabled adults by delivering services directly in several Skilled Nursing Facilities.  These visits are particularly important when treating this population of individuals who have limited mobility or are bed-bound.  Importantly, many developmentally disabled adults are Medi-Cal beneficiaries and their access to dental services was severely impacted when the Denti-Cal program was eliminated from Medi-Cal (with the exception of the limited procedures maintained as part of the federally required adult dental services).  Many times the residents of SNF’s have such extreme medical needs that their dental concerns are overlooked until they become emergencies.  However, the two most common oral health complaints of this population, abscessed teeth and ill-fitting dentures, directly affect their ability to consume a healthy diet, which can impact their overall health.

 Women, Infants, & Children (WIC)

Dientes visits two WIC centers, each at least twice per month, to provide services and education to pregnant mothers, new parents and their children.  We visit WIC centers both in the south county (Watsonville, which is a 78% Latino population) as well as north (Santa Cruz) to offer convenient access to all residents.  In addition to providing direct care, our staff teach classes on oral health care and nutrition, which are offered in both English and Spanish.  Topics covered include oral hygiene for babies and parents, promoting a healthy diet, the important links between oral and general health, and pointers about how to look at kids’ teeth and recognize potential problems.

Head Start

Our recent collaboration with Head Start is an ideal way to better serve our mutual clients, offering convenient access to dental care for Head Start participants and allowing Dientes to extend services to even more low-income parents and young children.  Beginning in May 2010, Dientes staff started visiting Head Start centers throughout the county.  By bringing oral health services directly to those in need, both organizations hope to overcome typical obstacles to healthcare for underserved families, such as lack of access to transportation and inability to take time off from work.  In addition, the Dientes team has begun training staff at Head Start centers in Santa Cruz and Watsonville to instruct them about the importance of early oral health care and preventing tooth decay, so that they can in turn more effectively educate their clients.

Santa Cruz Head Start, which falls under the umbrella of the Santa Cruz Community Counseling Center, is a free program available to any families living below 100% of the Federal Poverty Level.

Second Harvest Food Bank

We are excited about a brand new project called “Harvesting Oral Health”, a collaboration with Second Harvest Food Bank’s “Food For Children” program (FFC).  FFC provides healthy food at 49 locations per month for over 13,000 people, including 9,000 children.  Last year the program reached over 158,700 total individuals in Santa Cruz County, including an estimated 109,800 kids.

We will be providing “train the trainer” sessions for Second Harvest outreach staff on oral healthcare, as well as hygiene supplies and bilingual oral health promotion information in the bags of food they distribute.  Via the Food for Children program, four times this year we will donate 10,000 toothbrushes, paste, and floss that will reach 3,800 families.