For 15 years, Jenny Harris has worked to raise awareness of safeguarding issues in the dental world and beyond. The project lead for the landmark document, Child Protection and the Dental Team, she has been wholly committed to ensuring that dental neglect is recognised as a potential marker for child maltreatment. This month, in recognition of her outstanding contribution in this area, she was awarded Honorary Membership of the Council of the NSPCC. Taken into account was her commitment to child safeguarding and 11 years membership of the charity’s Health Liaison Committee on which she has represented the British Society of Paediatric Dentistry (BSPD).

The British Society of Paediatric Dentistry’s Outstanding Innovation Award is open for entries. The award, now in its second year, was established to give recognition to shining examples of initiatives which improve children’s oral health. The winner in 2018 was dentist Ben Underwood for his tooth-brushing app BrushDJ. The first prize for the award is the opportunity to speak at BSPD’s conference and Ben’s presentation was definitely a highlight of the Dundee gathering.

A study undertaken at the University of Liverpool, and presented at September’s BSPD conference in Dundee, provided valuable insight into the Society’s Dental Check by One campaign. Emma Morgan, an undergraduate dental student at the time of the study and supervised by Senior Lecturer Laura Gartshore, carried out a survey of final year dental students’ awareness and preparedness for DCby1. She found that only 8% of responders were aware of DCby1.