Mini Mouth Care Matters (Mini MCM) oral health resources for non-dental health and social care professionals involved in the care of Looked after Children (LAC)/ Children in Care (ChiC)

A Looked after Child (LAC) is defined under the Children’s Act 1989 as a child or young person (CYP) who has been under the continuous care of a local authority for more than 24 hours. These Mini MCN resources uses the term Child in Care (ChiC) interchangably with LAC.

These resources are based on schemes developed in the East of England, East Midlands and Buckinghamshire where regionally, a mouth check is completed within the child’s health assessment and pathways developed to support health and social care professionals in signposting or referring to the appropriate dental service using a RAG (Red-Amber-Green) rating.

The Mini Mouthcare Matters (Mini MCM) initaitive tackles dental access for LAC via a two-pronged approach to:

1) streamline the pathway to access NHS dental care (via locally agreed pathways in collaboration with ICBs and Paediatric Dental Managed Clinical Networks and

2) empower non-dental health and social care teams to feel more confident with oral health.

These resources utilise the “Making Every Contact Count” (MECC) model as a focus for health and social care professionals to provide oral health promotion.