Working tooth magic in Northland backblocks

By BRIDGET CARTER

Hidden away in tiny schools through rural Northland are the faces behind one of the country's most successful dental health schemes.

Principals such as Dave Clark and Gary Linter-Cole work in the poorest part of New Zealand and for the past five years have backed a programme that involves getting their students in class to brush their teeth.

Its early results have been overwhelmingly successful. Northland Maori children, who had, on average, 4.35 filled, extracted or decayed teeth at age 5, now have permanent teeth that are decay-free.

Oral health adviser Bob McKegg, who is collecting results from the programme, says it has worked so well because of leaders like Mr Clark, 53, at Omanaia School, and Mr Linter-Cole, 47, at Te Kura O Awarua.

He calls them the "middle-aged blokes at underfunded and under-resourced schools" who are "stunningly good".

These teaching principals have schools ranked decile one with fewer than 25 students, mainly Maori, and five years ago they used to open the school doors each day to a classroom of heartbreak.

Five-year-olds would stare up at them with an entire mouth of baby teeth ripped out. Others had teeth so rotten their breath stank. Many had never used a toothbrush.

The principals say they were pleased, but not surprised, at Dr McKegg's follow-up results - they noticed a change in the children's teeth as soon as the tooth-brushing programme began.

Mr Clark says most of the children's parents at his school near Rawene are trapped in the poverty cycle and brushing teeth is often something that gets forgotten.

The children live in overcrowded homes or farm sheds. Some are jammed into a three-bedroom home with a dozen other people and occasionally no running water.

Most parents are unemployed. They are trying to pay off fines and are no strangers to drugs and alcohol.

"Poverty is a terrible thing."

Mr Clark passed up his job as deputy principal at an Auckland intermediate 13 years ago and moved north with his wife, Pam Clark, to a beach home at Oakura.

She runs the toothbrushing project for Maori health provider Hauora Whanui.

Omanaia was one in a string of tiny Hokianga schools where Mr Clark was relief teaching until permanent staff were found ... but he stayed on for five years.

At Mr Linter-Cole's little school near Kaikohe, toothbrushing joins a list of extras like breakfast and Maori culture that he provides to the students.

"Before children can learn to read or write, they need to be healthy."

The Pakeha principal who teaches in Maori came north from a small school in the Wairarapa in 1998 when his wife, also a teacher, inherited land in the Hokianga.

The school was severely run down and plagued by board of trustees problems.

Both he and Mr Clark say that despite the battles and frustration that come with working in poor areas - like rarely seeing the money owed for stationery or the occasional school trip - there are many rewards and satisfactions.

The toothbrushing is an example.

The principals have worked hard, thought laterally and raised funds to ensure that their students are not disadvantaged when they walk through the school gates.

Tucked away at the end of a long, dirt driveway is Awarua School's new library, bought through fundraising dollars.

At the front of the neatly kept Omanaia School grounds is a flash-looking swimming pool won years ago through a colouring competition.

Computers line the classrooms.

Mr Clark hopes the toothbrushing programme can continue and be expanded. It takes five minutes every day and could save the country millions in dental care.

"It would be foolish to stop the programme because of a lack of funding. The benefits are so obvious."

Stopping the rot

* Maori health provider Hauora Whanui funds the toothbrushing programme for 1500 primary school pupils in rural Northland and at 17 kohanga reo.

* The schools have had daily brushing sessions in class for the past five years.

* Northland's Maori children had an average of 4.35 rotting teeth each at 5 years old.

* Check-up visits five years on show that pupils' permanent teeth, so far, are free of dental decay.