2024 SA Child Protection Awards Winner!

Our Foundation is honoured to have been recognised in the 2024 SA Child Protection Awards for our work with vulnerable children in our community.

Recently we were presented with the Outstanding Service Award – Wellbeing and Development by Minister for Child Protection Katrine Hildyard, who has been a great supporter of our work.

It all started in 2021 when we signed an MoU with the Department for Child Protection to ensure young people transitioning out of the child protection system could continue to receive dental and orthodontic care. 

Since then our partnership has grown so that we can now offer mobile dental clinics at DCP offices and we liaise closely with department staff to support their work with families, carers and children.

Our nomination from the department read:

Together we entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to provide services to children and young people in care
across 3 key areas:
• fee-capped orthodontic treatment for children and young people in care who do not meet the
clinical threshold of the SA Dental Service, on a case by case basis
• a programmatic approach to bulk billed or discounted dental services for eligible care leavers
aged 17-25 years
• a waiver of additional after hours call-out fees for emergency after hours’ dental care for
children and young people in care.
Over the past 12 months, ADFi has worked to explore new service opportunities beyond the MoU to
treat, educate and empower young people to maintain their own oral health and break down some of
the barriers to accessing dental and orthodontic services. ADF initiatives include:
• Providing fee capped orthodontic treatment for nine young people
• Collaborating with DCP to deliver two trial school holiday dental clinics at the DCP Gawler and
Blair Athol offices, providing checkups and treatments to a total of 22 children and young people who
were overdue for their annual dental check-ups, with preventative treatment given to 78% of children to
prevent oral diseases. Every child and young person that attended a clinic received personalised
instructions on brushing and oral hygiene, as well as a toothbrush to take home.
• Providing DCP with details of dental treatment provided to children and young people in care
through schools and childcare.

This school holidays we will hold dental checkup and treatment clinics at the DCP Gawler and Port Noarlunga offices as our partnership continues to grow and thrive.