An ongoing commitment to ensuring patients with special needs have access to oral health care.
The University of Florida College of Dentistry is grateful to the B. Thomas Golisano Foundation for a recent $50,000 grant that brings their total gifts to the center to $240,000 since 2021.
Access to children’s oral health care in Florida for families with low income can be extremely difficult for the easiest of patients – the ones who aren’t afraid of a new environment with lights, instruments and sounds that are sometimes even disconcerting for adults. For parents and guardians who are caring for children with disabilities, the challenge becomes even harder and that’s where the Golisano Foundation continues to step forward to help.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports about 1 in 36 children are identified with autism and sensory disorders, or ASD, but their lack of access to comprehensive dental care is an urgent public health problem.
In 2021, the B. Thomas Golisano Foundation helped create and equip a special, one-of-a-kind, program at the NCEF Pediatric Dental Center in Naples that allows children with ASD to gradually adjust to the dental center environment and to procedures dentists perform to maintain oral health. After acclimating to dental care in the Special Needs Oral Health Promotion Program, some patients are successfully able to transition to a regular dental care setting.
“It’s incredibly rewarding to see how our patients with ASD benefit from leading-edge techniques and technologies, as well as simple behavioral interventions that desensitize and, essentially, destress the situation so they’re able to comfortably receive oral health instructions and care,” said Lauren Governale, D.M.D., a UF College of Dentistry clinical associate professor and the director of the pediatric dental center.
Governale said that incorporating early interventions in people with ASD can make a difference in their overall health and well-being for the rest of their lives. “Not all dentists are equipped to care for patients with sensory or other disorders. The more likely it is that a patient can be seen in any type of dental environment makes it more likely they will continue to care for their oral health, which plays a critical role in overall health,” she said.
Now, with the Golisano Foundation’s new grant of $50,000 to support the Oral Health Promotion and Wellness Program for patients with ASD, the team at the pediatric dental center can expand their outreach and offer additional services for more patients and their families, including adding 25 more patients to the program in 2024 and more in the coming years.
Plans include the engagement of an interdisciplinary team of professionals to support the whole family. The team provides a wide range of services including positive reinforcement plans; patient education and skill acquisition; parent education with follow up; specific desensitization plans for each patient; connecting families with community supports and supporting therapies, such as speech language and occupational therapy; and more.
The Golisano Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the U.S. dedicated to making the world a better place for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Foundation is devoted to opening doors to opportunity, changing negative perceptions and stereotypes, and forging unprecedented partnerships to ensure individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities have pathways to personal dignity, independence, and the best possible expression of their abilities and talents throughout their lifetimes. Founded in 1985 by Tom Golisano—entrepreneur, philanthropist, civic leader, and founder of Paychex, Inc. —the Foundation “imagines the possibilities,” advocating for families, fighting for their dignity, and giving people with IDD the opportunity to thrive in their communities. With more than $60 million in gross assets, it awards about $3 million annually to non-profit organizations in Western New York and Southwest Florida.