Challenge
Although both children and parents know that brushing ones teeth is important, it is not always enough to create good habits in everyday life. At the same time, for many, dental visits can feel like a situation where you are assessed — more than helped.
Therefore, the dental department in Kolding Municipality wanted to investigate:
What is really at stake for children and families in the dental encounter, and is it a potential for developing an approach that is more supportive of collaboration rather than control.
Process and solution
Chris Holm Christensen is Head Dentist at Kolding Municipality Dental Care. At a management meeting in 2022, he heard a presentation on how the Municipality works to minimize the feeling of shame and guilt in overweight children. That led him to look at the practice of dentistry with new eyes - for example, whether staining plaque with red dye can feel like having ones flaws exposed?
Chris therefore took the initiative to start a design project and connected design consultants to the task. Together they set out to examine everyday life in and around dentistry with an open gaze.
The design team worked quite closely on the practice. They observed in the clinics, followed examinations, and spoke with children, parents and employees. They also interviewed dental and pediatric experts to gain more perspectives on the task.
The studies pointed out that the challenge is not about a lack of knowledge. Both children and parents know what to do. Instead, it's about the barriers that stand in the way in everyday life.
The work resulted in a number of solution spaces, which became the basis for internal working groups and employee workshops. Here, the employees worked with specific cases and personas and developed new ways of engaging in dialogue with children and parents.
One solution space was, for example, that many children have never seen their parents brush their teeth. This led to a change in the dialogue with the families — from instruction to the children to a common conversation about habits, role models and brushing teeth with the children.
The project has led to a new approach in which the relationship with children and families plays a much greater role. It has given new levers for dialogue and cooperation — without letting go of the dental core.
Dental care has gone from telling what is professionally right, to today exploring together with families what is actually possible in their everyday lives.
Dentists today find that they can meet children and families more in a way that creates security and cooperation. The goal is not only to ensure healthy teeth, but to be a partner for families — especially for those who find it most difficult to make good habits work in everyday life.
Results
By shifting the focus from control to cooperation and from guilt to understanding, a better basis has been created for more children to actually get their teeth brushed -- not just leading up to the dentist visit, but as part of their everyday lives.
Dentistry has also initiated a training course for their employees in reflexive practice, so that their employees can meet the children and their families even better.
