The 2021 Oregon Legislative Assembly, passed a House Bill that included the expectation each public school in the state must provide age-appropriate instruction in oral health to be included within the health education curriculum.
As a result, we were hired to write a K-8 and High School skills-based health education oral health curriculum for the Healthy Teeth, Bright Futures Coalition, which is comprised of representatives from philanthropic organizations, health plans, the education sector, health equity, and social justice groups and health care providers who advocate for and advance children’s oral health in Oregon. The Coalition is the connective tissue across a variety of perspectives and people who care about children’s oral health and improving access to oral health care.
After about two years of a wonderful working partnership, we have a K-12 Oral Health Program that is skills-based for Oregon’s students! We worked in partnership with the Coalition to ensure functional health information was being shared. The Oregon Department of Education promoted the pilot opportunity so we could have teacher pilot each lesson and provide feedback and student work samples to inform revisions.
Our team worked closely with Crear Colectivo, an amazing group of bicultural, Latinx educators who work in collaboration with communities and organizations to develop content that reflects and responds to diverse cultural contexts, while tending to multiplicity of languages, approaches, experiences, and skills at stake. The team at Crear Colective translated and transcreated all of the materials into Spanish. They were a joy to work with and I hope we have the opportunity to work with them again.
Finally, the graphic designer, Kristin Black did an amazing job designing all the materials to look good, read well, and be culturally relevant.
We love doing this work and our team is proud of this new Oral Health Curriculum. You can find all of the materials/resources in both languages here.
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