Supported by Colgate-Palmolive and Henry Schein

Global Child Dental FundHarvard School of Dental MedicineKing’s College London Dental Institute

SEAL Cambodia

SDL-5 Legacy Programme

A partnership programme to provide fissure sealant treatment to 60,000 disadvantaged Cambodian children

global child dental fund

Programme history

It all began with Professor Callum Durward, the Cambodia-based public health leader and executivedirector of the charitable trust ‘One-2-One Cambodia’.Under his stewardship, One-2-One has successfullyrun numerous public health programmes that a ddressed the needs of disadvantaged men, women and children in Cambodia.

In early 2008 Professor Bedi invited Callum to attend theGCDFund’s second Senior Dental Leaders conference (SDL-2). Here, Callum brought to the attention of Professor Bedithe plight of Cambodia’s underserved children. Tens ofthousands of street children and orphans in and aroundPhnom Penh suffer from HIV/Aids. And the country as awhole has one of the highest levels of dental decay in theworld. Motivated to make a difference together, ProfessorBedi and Callum began exploring how the GCDFund andOne-2-One could collaborate to benefit these children.

e new collaboration’s first milestone was achieved whenProfessor Bedi visited Phnom Penh to launch a CambodianTaskforce with Callum and the One-2-One medical directorAnnie Chen-Green. ‘e purpose of the Taskforce’, ProfessorBedi commented, ‘was to bring together Cambodia’s na-tional dental health leadership – to pool all the available, re-sources, motivation, skill-sets and knowledge for the goodof the country’. Working collectively, the Taskforce wouldestablish priorities for the national oral health agenda, andtake responsibility for initiating improvements in oralhealth services in Cambodia.

The development of Senior Dental Leaders (SDL) is the cornerstone of the GlobalChild Dental Fund’s work. Each year since 2007, King’s College London or the Harvard School of Dental Medicine programme have hosted an SDL programme.So what has been the result – what is the practical outcome?

Senior Dental Leadership - legacy programmes

global child dental fund

Professor Durward and Professor Bedi

Professor Bedi signing partnership agreement with the University of Health Sciences

Evaluating the impact of the course on the lives and workof dental leaders is difficult to quantify. Excellent delegatefeedback, increased numbers applying to attend and sponsors supporting more delegates each year gives usconfidence that we are making a difference. However, in2010 the charity decided to support two projects to be ledby delegates themselves which would embody leadershipprinciples and have a great impact on the oral health ofdisadvantaged children.

SDL-5 was our 2011 programme and a delegate Dr AnnieChen-Green linked up with a delegate from the SDL-2

course to start a “Seal Cambodia” initiative. This then be-came an SDL-5 legacy project and built on a long term involvement the Global Child Dental Fund had in Cam-bodia since 2008.

Seal Cambodia has become an multi-agency collaborationwith support from GCDFund, Cam Kids (The Cambo-dian Children’s Charity), GC Asia , Colgate Palmolive, theAustralia and NZ Society of Pediatric Dentistry, Cambo-dian Dental Association, Ministry of Health (Cambodia),International University dental school in Phnom Penhand a range of local dental charities and providers.

2013 progress update

Following months of planning last year, finally in November we were delighted to receive permission to get the programme underway!

As a last measure before visiting schools to carry outtreatments, we ran training days for the clinicians, the aim of which was to maximise clinical capacity. One-2-One then pushed ahead in December, treating all grade 2 children at three schools in Phnom Penh.

The January holiday period slowed progress, neverthelessthe collective spirit and sense of momentum continued togrow. Treatments began again in the second week of January, aided considerably by a small group of overseasvolunteers, to whom we are extremely grateful. By the end of the month, 815 children had sealants applied.

As expected, our capacity to provide treatment builtthroughout February, with an additional 1205 children receiving treatment. March was a breakthrough month,as we exceeded our monthly target (1666 children) by sealing 2475 children in total.

With 4495 children now treated and the programme running smoothly, we are well on course to achieve ouryear 1 target of treating 20,000 children!

In March the GCDFund sponsored the Cambodian Chief-Dental Officer – Dr Hak Sithan to attend the SDL-7 programme. This provided an opportunity for Dr Sithan to update us on the Seal Cambodia project and discusswith the charity how the programme could be integratedinto government programmes.

History continued...

In June 2009 the GCDFund also established a working relationship with the Faculty of Dentistry, InternationalUniversity in Phnom Penh. And a year later, One-2 One formally partnered with the GCDFund.

Following months of planning meetings, a new preventativeprogramme, ‘Smiles & Hopes Cambodia’ launched in early2010. e programme was a national collaboration between the GCDFund and One-2-One Cambodia. Support came fromthe Cambodian Government and various Cambodian NGO’s,charity’s and healthcare providers. Colgate-Palmolive andHenry Schein were sponsors. e programme addressed thedental and medical needs of vulnerable and destitute childrenin 115 Phnom Penh primary schools. It did this through threemain activities: providing dental and medical care; oral-healthtraining for teachers and community caregivers, distributingpreventive oral-health materials.

In March 2011, Annie Chen Green attended the fih SeniorDental Leaders conference (SDL-5) in Boston. Here, she up-dated Professor Bedi on the national situation in general, andthe progress of the Smiles & Hopes programme in particular.

Although hundreds of children were benefitting from theprogramme, there was widespread acknowledgment that the scope of the work needed to be significantly upscaled inorder to deal with the sheer numbers of suffering children.

rough numerous progressive planning meetings betweenCallum, Annie and Professor Bedi throughout 2010 and2011, a new course of action was resolved. All agreed that theGCDFund should lead the evolution of the Smiles & Hopesprogramme into a larger-scale prevention programme. Testscarried out during the previous 3 years had made clear thatthe most effective way to severe dental caries in children wasthrough the clinical process of applying a special coating of a fluoride-releasing cement onto decaying teeth.

In 2012, planning for the new programme progressed well.Colgate-Palmolive and Cam Kids were secured as sponsors,and a number of Cambodian medical providers came onboard to implement the treatment work. In November, theCambodian Government endorsed the programme and thetreatments began in earnest. us, the genesis of SEAL Cambodia lay in the evolution of the GCDFund's work inCambodia. anks to Annie Chen-Green, it was officiallyfounded as a 'Legacy Programme' of the SDL-5 conference.

Meeting with the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education. Dr Sithanupdates colleagues on his SDL-7 experience, April 2013

2012 planning meeting

Highlights and achievements

global child dental fundGCDFund, SEAL CambodiaRooms 329-331, 26-29 Drury Lane, London WC2B 5RLwww.gcdfund.org | info@gcdfund.org

We will update you on progress over the course of the year. In the meantime, if youwould like to support SEAL Cambodia, please contact us at info@gcdfund.org

Further information can be found at our website: www.gcdfund.org

Setting up a partner programme capable of treating tens of thousands of children required a huge amount of groundwork. Together, we managed to pool the skills and knowledge of the individuals involved, develop roadmaps, invest in training, conduct research and establish protocols.

It has been a privilege to work with so many committed and enthusiastic individuals. We hope that Cambodia’s children will benefit from the sealing treatment for decades.

Annie Chen-GreenMedical Director,One-2-One Cambodia

• Each of the partner organisations has made a majorcontribution to the treatment work. One-2-One inparticular has sealed the teeth of 3383 children.

• We have now worked with children from 35 schoolsin and around Phnom Penh.

• All of the schools visited have cooperated fully andassisted us our work. Teachers have beenexceptionally helpful in sending out consent forms to parents.

• Adverts have been widely circulated in Australia and NZ to recruit overseas volunteers. Those dentistsand students who volunteered in January andfebruary found the experience very positive.

• We have had many enquiries from potential volunteers,and expect more assistance from dentists, hygienists,therapists and students in the coming months.

• Dr Bethy Turton, a dentist from NZ, joined the programme in February. She is actively involvedin several research projects in Cambodia, and hasprovided valuable input into the project’s researchproposal, which will be circulated shortly.

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• Dr Sopheap, the research coordinator, has beenbusy contacting schools and partnerorganisations, helping them in the field,delivering forms, and offering advice.

• To incentivise local participants, we agreed togive certificates to the personnel who carry out the sealants. The certificates range from ‘bronze’ for 120 children sealed up toPlatinum for 600.

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