The story of the journey from drug user to wife, mother and ordained minister was shared by speaker Sarah Harries at the second Homeless and Inclusion Oral Health (#HIOH2018) conference in November 2018. Sarah reinforced the message that every life matters and that we all have the potential to change a life by reaching out to just one person. Dental skills can be a valuable asset in the process.

She was one of five keynote speakers who between them covered policy, research, service provision and in Sarah’s case, an inspiring case study of what can be achieved when the support is there to move someone out of hopelessness and into a future.

The event around the theme of Taking Action for Inclusion was a collaboration between Pathway Homeless Healthcare Charity and Health Education England, building on the outcomes of the 1st national inclusion healthcare conference in 2016. Almost 150 enthusiastic delegates attended from across the UK - the buzz throughout the conference was palpable.

We opened the conference and introduced our keynote speakers who were: Professor Andrew Hayward (University College London), Martin Burrows (@ItsGroundswell), Professor Ruth Freeman (University of Dundee) and Janet Clarke MBE (Deputy CDO, NHS England). They gave delegates an insight into current research activities in Inclusion Health and Oral Health as well as sharing ideas about interventions and commissioning strategies.

Workshop coordinators engaged delegates in action-focused ‘how to’ activities on a range of subjects including:

  • trauma informed practice for dentists

  • multi-agency working for dental professionals

  • medicine in dentistry for people experiencing social exclusion

  • designing and delivering third sector dental services

  • integrating social inclusion into the curriculum

  • participation of homeless people in health services

  • supporting homeless people to attend the dentist

  • developing social responsibility in general dental practice

  • developing a Community Dental Service for people experiencing homelessness.

Rob, Viv and Bean, experts by experience, all gave insight into the importance of oral health for people with experience of homelessness. Jessica Eaton (@Jessicae13Eaton) of Victim Focus developed a bespoke trauma informed dentistry package for delegates which included an information booklet, practice posters and a clinical form for patients which is freely available from her webpage (www.victimfocus.org.uk). Natalie Bradley (@natb990) and Brooke Zaidman (@ZaidmanBrooke) designed a resource to support the development of community dental services for people experiencing homelessness. All resources can be accessed on the Pathway Faculty Oral Health subgroup landing page https://www.pathway.org.uk/faculty/dentistry.

The team of fifteen workshop facilitators, led by Sara Harford, included speciality registrars, community dentists and a special care dentistry nurse who kindly volunteered their time to support the workshop coordinators and contributed their wealth of knowledge to the discussions. Tashfeen Kholasi (@dentalvolunteer) led the organisation of the dental charities including Health Point Foundation (@healthpointfdn), Dental Mavericks (@DentalMavericks), Den-Tech, Dentaid (@dentaid-charity), Groundswell, Pathway (@PathwayUK) and Crisis at Christmas who gave insights into volunteering opportunities and charitable work happening in the UK and internationally with refugees and people experiencing homelessness.

Alongside the keynote speakers and workshops, the delegates were challenged to network, share ideas and commit to action over the next few months and beyond. Several delegates presented posters at the event on their local initiatives and the winning poster by Andrea Johnson of Den-Tech (@DenTech_charity) and colleagues gave insights into a quality improvement project of a same-day denture initiative undertaken with Crisis at Christmas Dental Service (@crisisdental). Through donation of their lunch money, the conference delegates raised more than £200 for a local Birmingham charity, Outreach Angels, who provide people experiencing homelessness with sleeping bags and other resources.

Some of those who attended the conference remarked that it was ‘an opportunity to be involved with one of the most inspiring conferences I ever attended!’ and that ‘seeing how many fantastic people there are advocating for positive outcomes has been really inspirational.’

The Homeless and Inclusion Oral Health conference takes place once every 2 years with a mission statement to promote inclusive oral health practice and provide knowledge, tools and inspiration for the socially responsible dentist. In the interim, if you would like to be kept up to date with Inclusion Oral Health, then you can sign up to receive the biannual newsletter from the Pathway Faculty.

With great thanks to all the keynote and workshop speakers, conference facilitators, charities and the organising team from Pathway and Health Education England.