H.O.M.E. Coach Drives Dental Efforts in Licking County
One of the College’s major outreach programs, the OSU Dental
H.O.M.E. Coach played a significant role in a new initiative with
the OSUCOD, Licking County Health Department (LCHD) and Newark City
Schools. Since its launch in 2005, the Dental HOME Coach has
traveled to more than 74 Columbus-area elementary schools, providing
approximately 20,000 dental procedures for underserved children in
Franklin County.
Working in collaboration with the LCHD, the mobile dental clinic
visited 10 elementary schools and provided dental services to
children in the Newark (Ohio) area. These children had been
identified as having follow-up dental needs through the LCHD sealant
program and having no dental “home.” Classroom education was also
delivered at these Newark schools by our senior dental students,
(see video excerpt above). College of Dentistry professor and
director of the dental H.O.M.E. Coach program Canise Bean said of
this new initiative, “I saw this effort in Newark as an opportunity
to have a positive impact in another community outside Franklin
County — and to hopefully make a difference.” One of Dr. Bean’s
former students and a Newark practitioner, Dr. Benjamin Jump (’03),
was very helpful and supportive in connecting the OSUCOD with the
necessary resources for this initiative.
