Darton State College Department of Dental Hygiene is honored to receive The American Dental Hygienists’ Association Institute for Oral Health/Wrigley Company Foundation Service Grant for 2016. This $5,000 grant will support the College’s annual participation in The Farm Worker Family Health Program.

For the past ten years, Darton State College Department of Dental Hygiene has participated in The Farm Worker Family Health Program. This program addresses urgent primary healthcare needs of migrant farm workers and their families.

“Working with The Farm Worker Family Health Program allows our students to obtain service learning experience, gain clinical and cultural insights and give back to the Southwest Georgia region,” says Darton State College Director of Dental Hygiene Dr. Stacey Marshall.

The Farm Worker Family Health Program provides important community-based health services to an underserved group where the services are most needed and where the population is most accessible: in the fields, camps and school settings. While Darton State College Department of Dental Hygiene provides faculty and students from its undergraduate program to assist, other universities provide nurse practitioners, nursing, physical therapy, and pharmacy faculty and students.

“Contributing to the improvement of the oral health status of society by providing instructions to diverse populations in a variety of settings is one of the goals of our dental hygiene program,” says Marshall. “Through continued participation in the Farm Worker Family Health Program dental hygiene students are able to continue to provide access to high-quality dental care to migrant farmworkers and their families.”

As part of the program, all children are screened for dental, vision, hearing problems, height, weight and BMI, anemia, blood pressure, hypertension, gross motor skills, and scoliosis. Due to the migration patterns of farm workers and their families, the program is able to see a sizeable percentage of individuals from year to year, ensuring much needed continuity in health care and health screening.

“Grant funded programming allows Darton State College to offer valuable opportunities to our students and the community,” says Shalonda Heard, Director of Grants at Darton State College. “This grant provides an opportunity for our dental hygiene students to participate in an inter-professional, summer cultural immersion service learning experience; while providing a much needed service to our growing region.”

A mobile healthcare clinic, staffed by faculty and students, is set up nightly for two weeks in camps or packing sheds. Working late into the evening under tents and with portable medical equipment, the program provides episodic care for any individual who comes to the site.