Smiles
for Success Mission Statement:
The
mission of Smiles for Success is to offer
cost-free dental care to women graduates of accredited
job readiness and placement programs or other community-based
agencies thus helping those who are helping themselves.
Smiles for Success is affiliated with numerous
job readiness programs in over 30 states. The dental care offered is meant to be a short-term solution to those
who need treatment unavailable to them through government
programs or traditional insurance as they move from public assistance
to the working world. Smiles does not provide complete make overs.
Smiles For Success programs also work in partnership
with the aforementioned training programs, which have accredited
and successful records in training and placing women in
jobs. In addition, each SFS local area program
works in conjunction with a clothing agency to outfit
the potential candidate with suitable clothing for their
interviews.
Brief
Summary of the Smiles Program:
Smiles
for Success provides free dental care for women
who are unable to financially afford treatment, which
will improve oral health, relieve pain and restore self-confidence
and assurance. Helping to remove the barrier of dental
care, women can then become employed. SFS
provides an opportunity for the dental community to find
innovative, constructive ways and means to assist motivated
women to obtain employment and independence in an increasingly
competitive and demanding labor market.
Recognizing the enormous lack of adequate dental care
among the disadvantaged, Smiles For Success educates and instructs women treated
by the volunteer dentists, so that they and their families
will then seek and maintain permanent dental care as they
become financially stable.
teeth. In
early 1996 the pilot
program was launched in New York City and programs
in Boston,
Denver, and Philadelphia were developed in 1998.