WOOSTER -- With the opening of a pediatric dental practice last year, doors to greater dental hygiene for children enrolled in Community Action Wayne/Medina's Head Start and Early Head Start have been opened.
CAW/M Child and Family Development Director Kristen Cooke said making sure every child enrolled in Head Start goes through a dental screening is a program requirement. The screenings, usually done by Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine's Headstart Outreach Program, sometimes yield issues that require attention from a pediatric dentist.
For years, those making the referrals had a hard time finding appropriate practices for the patients, President and CEO Melissa Pearce said. The community did not have a pediatric dentist and many of the dentists in the community do not accept Medicaid, which many Head Start families use for insurance.
"We had a real problem making sure the needs of our Head Start children were being met," she said.
CAW/M Health Specialist Cheryl Ackerman said many of the referrals were made to dentists in metropolitan areas. Some families had to make trips to Akron, Canton or Cleveland.
However, Canton-based dentist Dr. Safuratu Y. Aranmolate opened the Wooster Pediatric Dental Center in December 2014, and things began to change. Referrals could be made to a dental practice just down the road.
"(Aranmolate) solved the problem," Pearce said.
The practice accepts all insurance types and specializes in treating children, Aranmolate said. It employs one general dentist and three pediatric dentists who have training in child development and psychology, she said.
The practice has had a significant impact in helping the agency improve its Head Start dental hygiene statistics. According to a release from CAW/M, the agency is ahead of national averages in terms of accessibility to dental care.
Nationally, 79.4 percent of children enter Head Start or Early Head Start with accessible dental care. At the end of one year, that average jumps up to 89.4 percent. Locally, those percentages, respectively, are 82 and 100.
The national statistic for Head Start children needing additional treatment after the screening, at 12.4 percent, is lower than the local number of 20 percent. However, Cooke said the fact the community has a pediatric dentist means the percentage of youth getting additional treatment is at 93 percent. She said in the coming years, that number is going to continue to rise toward 100 percent.
The reason the agency pushes to have higher stats is because dental hygiene has a big impact on a child's ability to learn, Cooke said. "If you have an abscess, you're not focusing on what the teacher is telling you. You can't."
The research backs that up, too. The release from CAW/M cites the American Journal of Public Health, stating children in low income families who have tooth aches in a six month period are four times as likely to have a grade point average below 2.8 percent than those without.
In that same vein, one of the end goals of the Head Start program is for its participants to have a dental home, Cooke said. With a dental home, children can begin to receive preventative care instead of emergency care. She said Wooster Pediatric Dental Center is helping CAW/M accomplishing that goal.
"We're here to help," Aranmolate said.
Reporter Thomas Doohan can be reached at 330-287-1635 or tdoohan@the-daily-record.com.
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