Toolkits

Oral Health Literacy Toolkit

This set of resources for oral health providers offers an overview of what oral health literacy is and why it matters, as well as practical tools and roadmaps for improving the health literacy of dental practices.

This toolkit was developed by and is based on research conducted by Health Research for Action, a research center of UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, in collaboration with the California Department of Public Health Office of Oral Health.

Tobacco Cessation Toolkit

The purpose of this toolkit is to support dental providers in California with tools and resources to guide their patients’ journey to a smoke and tobacco-free life. Tobacco use matters for oral health and dental care. Dental professionals are well positioned to reduce tobacco use among their patients and decrease their patients’ risk of poor health outcomes.

Brush in a Box Toolkit

Encouraging toothbrushing in Early Education and Childcare (EECC) programs helps to promote oral health and teaches children a lifelong habit. Local Oral Health Programs (LOHPs) can use this toolkit as a resource to help fulfill Work Plan Activity 2.1.b #6. Design of an early education and care prevention program (e.g., Toothbrushing Programs in Pre-K, Oral Health Education) and 2.1.b reporting measure E) Early Prevention Program. LOHP staff can use this toolkit to train teachers and childcare providers how to implement a daily toothbrushing program and incorporate oral health education into their classrooms and/or childcare programs. Early education and childcare (EECC) programs are an important setting to implement a daily toothbrushing program for teaching children a lifelong healthy habit. Many professional and governmental organizations endorse supervised toothbrushing in early care programs.

Water Fluoridation Manual

How to use this manual:

  • The process of obtaining fluoridation for communities in the State of California
  • The governing processes involved in choosing fluoridation
  • Information on making the case for fluoridation in your community

Progressing through the manual, section by section, guides you through the steps of advocating for fluoridation from beginning to result. See the diagram in Appendix A for an overview of this process.

Leveraging Medi-Cal Innovation to Promote Children’s Oral Health: A Toolkit for Local Oral Health Programs

Developed by Children Now, the toolkit provides suggestions for how LOHPs can leverage plan requirements and new benefits in the Medi-Cal program to partner with Medi-Cal managed care plans (MCPs) and other local organizations.

MCPs are critical to promoting children’s oral health. The California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) initiative and new Medi-Cal benefits available to children and families present new opportunities for MCPs, local oral health programs (LOHPs), community-based organizations (CBOs), schools, and local First 5s to build and strengthen relationships that promote optimal oral health for California’s children and youth.

School-Linked Dental Program Manual

Schools offer an ideal setting for the intersection of health and education to apply early intervention and prevention that can be sustained into adulthood. This manual is designed to help conduct school oral health screenings and link students to dental care through a school-linked dental program. It is a step-by-step guide designed to assist in setting up a program utilizing the minimal available resources.