How to Start a Custom Mouth Guard Program at Your Local School

When people hear “sports dentist” many immediately assume involvement at the professional level.  The truth is, all dentists are “sports dentists”, we all treat athletes in our office and there are only so many professional teams to take care of.  The real need is at the youth level.  Early education for oral hygiene is just as important as education on the utilization of custom-fit mouth guards.  The best way to educate, market your practice, and give back to the community is by establishing a relationship with your local high school and designing a mouth guard program for their student athletes.

There are thirty high schools in the county where our practice is located, 30! If you take an average class size of 400 students or 1,600 students per high school, that’s 48,000 students just in 1 county. These aren’t all student athletes of course, but even 5% of that leaves you with 2,400 student athletes. The need is all around us. Most of these athletes have likely only been exposed to a boil and bite mouth guard, leaving a great opportunity for education on a properly fitted custom mouthguard. These guards offer a better fit and comfort, leading to improved compliance as well as superior protection when compared to a boil and bite guard. Now, how can we get involved?

Step 1: Reach out to a local high school

Write a letter to the athletic director/head trainer and ask to present to the coaches of contact sports or send along a flyer showing the product you can make. Pick the school closest to your office or possibly the school you attended or one of your kids will attend in the future. This could strengthen the connection you have to the program.

Step 2: Establish legal/parental approval

Work with the athletic director/head trainer to establish a consent form that the students will have signed from their parents. At this point you can decide if there will be any cost to the students or if this is a charity/community outreach program your team would like to do.

Step 3: Pick a date for impressions

Once you have an idea of the amount of students interested in obtaining a guard pick a date for impressions at the school. You could choose to do this in the Fall and/or Spring semesters before the start of the respective sports seasons. On that date, come prepared with impression materials (alginate or digital scanners) and a team that can help facilitate the flow. Ask your staff if they’d be willing to help, use the afternoon as a team building opportunity.

Step 4: Fabricate the mouth guards

Keep it simple at first. Offer one or two of the school colors, you could get fancy offering other designs and name/number on the guard but establish yourself and flow first to make sure you get the guards to the teams in a timely manner. If you are taking alginate impressions, head back to the office to pour up the models after you take your impressions (you can trim them the following day).

Step 5: Deliver the guards

Schedule another day to visit the school to deliver the guards that were made. Heat the guards and balance the occlusion.

What’s the saying...? “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” In this case, it starts with a single phone call or letter. If you’re looking to get involved in your community and establish yourself as a point person for sports dentistry--a well-run mouthguard program is the perfect place to start. Your athletes, coaches, athletic trainers and parents will be grateful.