Oral health coach Leigh Hunter talks about Growing Smiles – and how it has evolved alongside her passion for health promotion.
Growing Smiles is simple health promotion! So says Leigh Hunter, a Northern Ireland-based oral health coach, who set up the company in 2010 with the aim of helping people help themselves have a healthier smile for life.
Describing Growing Smiles (link to GS website) as a ‘niche lifestyle coaching and e-commerce business working directly with the public and supporting the profession’, the company offers evidence-based tips and advice, oral health coaching and an online shop with a range of products recommended by dental professionals.
‘We offer the public a complementary option to manage their oral health,’ explained Leigh, who has a clinical background in community and hospital dental services, education and training, and general and specialist practice in the UK and abroad.
More receptive
Some come to GS to buy a product, for example to stop bleeding gums, which becomes an opportunity to engage and help them understand why their gums are bleeding. This may lead on to a conversation about visiting the dental team for professional assessment and treatment. It also may identify contributing factors to the bleeding and also barriers to treatment.
‘We aim to make every contact count with a personal, practical and positive evidence-based approach to improving oral health.’
According to Leigh, Growing Smiles started with an itch and a habit of talking teeth – anywhere, anytime, anyhow!
‘Cars, trains, boats and planes – often to embarrassment of my family! During these ad hoc oral health chats I realised that many people are more receptive and inquisitive about oral health when they are not in a dental chair.’
So Growing Smiles was born, offering a range of bespoke approaches to oral health promotion, shifting the focus from the dental chair to the everyday environment for oral health care – home.
Activities
Before Covid struck, GS was providing oral health promotion in people’s homes, educational settings, workplaces, social groups, health fairs and so on. Leigh and the team ran ‘Happy Huddles’ (oral health parties for small groups) and a variety of one to one and group coaching sessions in homes, businesses and settings. They provided home visits for families/carers which were very beneficial for those anxious and for small children and ran programmes for all ages, from cradle to grave.
‘We realised that the over-50s are greatly underserved for oral health promotion, so we liaised with others who work with them,’ explains Leigh. GS added BP and blood sugar monitors to their resource kit and took every opportunity to promote oral health in the context of overall health and wellbeing.
They provided training for dental and other professionals and invested in resources from pop up stands and puppets to mini tablets. ‘Pretty much anyone who wanted help and support to improve oral health – we were up for it,’ she said.
Strength to strength
Then with the pandemic the world changed – and Growing Smiles pivoted with it. To meet the new need they supported dental practices in how they could support patients, took referrals for online coaching via the video call system which was already established, helped design links for clinicians to signpost patients and generally did everything they could to help dental, other health care professionals, and the public maintain their oral health.
The live chat function on the website went into overdrive. Leigh recalls: ‘Members of the public couldn’t contact a professional but found us. If we couldn’t help we directed and helped them contact those who could.’
People got in touch with GS with a variety of random questions and worries, and learned to take photos of their mouths in order to send concerns through for advice. The online activity that had already begun pre-Covid was ideally placed to adapt to the pandemic.
Now we are emerging from the pandemic, the need is still there – online coaching is going from strength to strength as dentists are still battling with backlogs. Time out for Teeth is a one-to-one or small group coaching session, or Clean Between Coaching specialises in interdental cleaning techniques. All can be booked through the website.
Talking Teeth Thursdays
One aspect of GS which has taken on a life of its own is Talking Teeth Thursday, which has kept going without fail, every week for five years. For an hour each Thursday, Leigh or a member of the team – wherever they are in the world – make themselves available on Facebook to talk teeth.
It started as an ‘ask the expert’ idea, often via DM or email, but now tends to have a topic – maybe a question that has been posed or something in the news.
‘The benefit of a topic is that it makes me read around it,’ says Leigh, who continues to love learning and modifying what she knows about oral health – and sharing it with others. ‘What we try and do with GS is to make it a place where you come to find out about things, however quirky.’
Online shop
Opening the online shop was a lightbulb moment. Previously GS had been sourcing and purchasing products they were recommending on behalf of patients, till someone at a conference suggested a shop where people could buy directly.
Leigh says, ‘Why didn’t we think of that?’ So the GS family put their heads together again – and opened a shop within the GS website, offering hand-picked dental products. It’s a family enterprise. Leigh’s husband Geoff is the retail manager, while their son and daughter are also involved. The web designer is a close friend, and dental colleagues are on hand for advice.
The advantage of the GS shop is that it includes professional comment on the products – and only stocks items that they have confidence in. The Biomin range has been on the stock list since 2018.
‘I have been a fan of Biomin for a long time,’ says Leigh. She’d found out about it at a conference and it had piqued her interest. ‘Fluoride turbocharges the action of saliva, and so the prolonged exposure to fluoride with Biomin F is really interesting.’
Leigh was aware of the work of the team at Queen Mary University of London, where Biomin was developed, and liked what they had done before. ‘I liked the concept of Novamin, and Biomin is similar but better with its enhanced, prolonged gain,’ she said. She also appreciates the introduction of Biomin F for Kids, with its melon and strawberry variants. ‘
Make a difference
Many children don’t like the minty flavour, but this gives them the same protection as Biomin F,’ she added. ‘If people do nothing else with their oral health, they brush their teeth, so it’s important that the toothpaste is effective. I like to recommend it to people with enamel hypomineralisation, which is becoming more common, or those at risk of demineralisation from any cause.’
There’s no doubt that as we come out of the pandemic, GS will continue to evolve and adapt to the new normal. They are constantly having new ideas.
‘I’m still quite surprised that Growing Smiles has got to where it is today,’ admits Leigh.
It still remains true to the initial concept, however: engaging clients with their oral health is the foundation of everything Growing Smiles offers, and Leigh’s passion for oral health promotion, prevention, and for people, underpins everything they do.
She says: ‘We might not make a fortune but we like to think we make a difference!’
For further information on the science behind Biomin visit biomin.co.uk.
To buy Biomin F, Biomin C or Biomin F for Kids, go to: www.growingsmiles.co.uk/shop/biominf-toothpaste-armour-teeth-recommended-rapid-tooth-remineralisation/
