What you can do to help out during National Smile Month

It’s May, which means it’s National Smile Month!

You may have heard of National Smile Month before – it’s a national event that aims to promote awareness around the importance of oral health amongst children and adults nationwide. As you can probably guess, it’s something we’re extremely passionate about here at AP Smilecare, and we offer a variety of dental treatments to help you keep your smile (as well as your family’s!) bright and healthy. (We’ve recently overhauled our Denplan scheme to make our private dentistry service even more affordable!)

The main theme of National Smile Month this year is a focus on some of the inequalities faced by particular groups in our society when it comes to dental hygiene. The event is run by the Oral Health Foundation – you can find out more about the fantastic charity work the organisation does over on its official website, as well as detailed information about what you can do to help. Here, we’ve listed a few of the key activities that you and your family can get involved with below!

Send a letter to the tooth fairy

When you’re a child, the world is a truly magical place populated with enchanting characters like Father Christmas, the Easter bunny, and of course, the tooth fairy. Let your child’s imagination loose with this fantastic activity that’s great fun for children and parents alike.

The tooth fairy wants to know how well children are taking care of their teeth, so why not encourage them to write a letter to the tooth fairy and send it to the Oral Health Foundation office? From here, all the letters that get sent in are read, and a select few are chosen to be published on the organisation’s official social media pages. Plus, every child who takes part will receive a small reward and a thank you letter for participating.

Smiley Selfies

This is a great one that anyone can get involved with, whether it’s at home or in the office. The idea behind the Smiley Selfie is to share the message about how important it is to take good care of your oral health. How do you take part? It’s really simple – just order the Oral Health Foundation’s iconic Smiley kit online, and take a selfie with a Smiley and post it on your social media. Don’t forget to show your nice bright smile behind it!

Make sure to include the hashtags #mysmileyselfie and #smilemonth, and you’ll be entered into a competition where the winners of which will each receive four tickets to a local comedy show in their area.

Dental Buddy

The Dental Buddy programme is a great way to inspire youngsters to take good care of their oral health. It’s a fantastic way for families and schools to get involved with National Smile month, and teaches children some of the fundamental facts about what it takes to maintain a healthy dental routine. They’ll learn things like:

The importance of brushing your teeth for two minutes twice a day with toothpaste
The role sugar plays in diet and what a balanced diet means
Why everybody should visit the dentist on a regular basis

The Oral Health Foundation office provides a free, downloadable Dental Buddy resource package which you can use with your children (or in the classroom if you’re a teacher!) to get you started.

These are just a few of the ways that you can get involved with National Smile month! Here at AP Smilecare, we pride ourselves on our friendly, caring and patient-focused approach to dentistry. We’ll take the time to get to know you in order to find out exactly what dental treatments and approaches you’d benefit from the most. Book in with our team by calling us on 01254 297 000 – we look forward to seeing you!