#smiles4miles

The Smiles 4 Miles program is completed in early learning centres and one key message is clean well and promoting the development of good oral hygiene practices from a young age.

The Clean Well messages for Clean Well include:

- Clean your child’s teeth and gums as soon as the first tooth appears, using a damp cloth or a small headed toothbrush

- from 18 months brush your child’s teeth with a pea size amount of low fluoride children’s toothpaste twice a day

- A child should have a dental check up by two years of age

The Health Promotion and Dental teams have been working together throughout term 3 and 4 to provide dental screenings to our early childhood centres in the Swan Hill Area.

In May our Health Promotion Officer Bronte at Swan Hill District Health has been visiting early childhood centres with Eat the Rainbow sessions under the Smiles 4 Miles initiative. Smiles 4 Miles is an initiative of Dental Health Services Victoria, working in partnership with Swan Hill District Health to improve the oral health of the youngest children in our community.

Eat the Rainbow sessions aligns with the Eat Well messages in the Smiles 4 Miles initiative. Eat Well messages for the 3-5 age group include; enjoy a wide variety of nutritious foods every day from the five food groups, and that healthy meals and snacks are important for healthy teeth.

The Eat the Rainbow sessions aim to increase the exposure and experience to different fruit and vegetables. The sessions provide fruit and vegetables that are the colours of the rainbow. This year, the fruit and vegetables that were brought to the sessions were red capsicum, mandarin, pineapple, snow peas, purple cabbage and cauliflower. These fruits and vegetable have been both familiar and new for children. It has been so great to visit all the early learning centres and see the children tasting a rainbow of fruit and vegetables!  

From July 26-30, 2021 is Early Learning Matters Week, celebrating the important role of parents, carers and early childhood educators in guiding early childhood development. 

Learn more here: https://www.earlylearningmatters.org.au/

In the first five years of life, children’s brains are wired to learn and they are developing quickly. 

Early learning helps to amplify their natural skills and abilities. Young children learn best through play-based activities that are suited to their age. When children have inclusive, positive and rich early learning experiences, it is more likely they will go on to become successful learners with high levels of wellbeing. 

Early childhood education and care is an important way of providing such learning experiences, especially for children experiencing disadvantage or vulnerability.

Trained early childhood educators support and extend play to maximise learning through exploration, inquiry and problem-solving. Educators also help families understand and support their child’s development.

Here at Swan Hill District Health, we support the fabulous early childhood educator teams locally with the provision of healthy eating and oral health sessions and supports, funded by Dental Health Services Victoria under the Smiles 4 Miles program.

So far in 2021, seven ‘Eat a Rainbow’ sessions have been provided for 148 children and have another 8-10 sessions are scheduled for this term.

We will also be sending out the toothbrush packs with a cleaning chart for families, to support oral health messages and habits.

Congratulations to all of our early childhood educators for the fabulous work that you do, and also to our local parents and carers, we know parents are the number one educators of young children and we offer our support to you all.

Have your say on the development of our new Early Years Online Hub, either by attending via Zoom on Friday 23 July from 1pm, details below, or by completing this online survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SNHCLPL

Zoom online meeting      https://zoom.us/

Meeting ID 842 4903 1198 Passcode: 056812