Spruceland Elementary student receives dental treatment at CNC – photo submitted

Prince George, B.C. – The “Seal in a Smile” program is back for its 15th year at the College of New Caledonia’s (CNC) Prince George campus.

A partnership between CNC, Northern Health and School District 57, the preventative dental/oral health program targets young children from select schools in the community.

“We host children from targeted schools (Sprucleand Elementary & Nusdeh Yoh this year) and with parent permission we clean their teeth and we apply fluoride if the parents consent to that,” says CNC Dental Clinic coordinator Heather Brown. “And we actually have them back to seal in the grooves of their teeth and help prevent dental decay in the future.”

She calls the program a “win,win” for both CNC and the participating schools.

“Our students, because of their age groups, find it challenging to find young kids to come in and practice their skills on,” says Brown. “Also kids are learning about oral hygiene at the same time our students are learning.”

She says “Seal in a Smile” is a good example of the kind of valuable program the community is in danger of losing.

“Our program has been given the go-ahead to take a fall intake after having the scare of suspension this year. Unfortunately our Dental Hygiene program will not be taking in an intake for 2015 pending the re-write of a curriculum,” says Brown. “So we’re hoping for the hygiene program to be reinstated in the fall of 2016, but at this point in time we haven’t heard any promises for either program to be sustained longer than this year.”

She adds “we’re still hoping the community backs us and sees these programs to be really important and something that they continue to talk to the powers that have dollars really.”