Volunteers deliver record-breaking month for BrightBites
More than 18,700 nursery and primary school-age children across the country received oral health education in a record-breaking month for our BrightBites scheme.
The programme, run by Dentaid the Dental Charity and funded by Simplyhealth, the owner of Denplan, reached the milestone of 18,761 children in June.
That wasn’t the only record to fall last month! BrightBites volunteers visited a new high of 145 settings in that time, ranging from schools and nurseries to health fairs and wellbeing events in areas of social deprivation.
The number was boosted by a bumper day of sessions across Andover on June 4th to coincide with Volunteers’ Week. Fourteen schools across the town received visits from educators to talk with children on key oral health topics.
BrightBites is a fun and engaging initiative designed to educate school-aged children -many of them from low-income families – about the importance of protecting their teeth through toothbrushing and making healthy food choices. Children are also provided with a toothbrush and toothpaste at the end of each session to help keep them on a positive oral health journey.
Official government data showed that more than 20% of five-year-old children in England had evidence of tooth decay as of the 2023 to 2024 school year, while one in five (21%) parents said their children brush less than twice per day or not at all, according to last year’s Oral Health Survey from Denplan.
The bumper month comes off the back of an announcement that BrightBites is getting an extra £1.2 million in funding to continue reaching children at schools and nurseries across the UK thanks to Simplyhealth.
We’re currently looking for volunteers in Hampshire who would be able to help us run BrightBites sessions at Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme.
HAF provides activities and hot meals for children eligible for free school meals at more than 100 locations across the county and we are aiming to reach as many of those as possible through our oral health education.
Anyone interested in signing up can get in touch by emailing brightbites@dentaid.org or via our social media channels.