2007 Funded Projects

The Foundation was prepared to fund two grants, however, one project was canceled due to extenuating circumstances beyond the control of the recipient and CFDHRE. As a result, only the following project was funded this year.

Project Title: National Competencies for Dental Hygiene Entry-to-Practice

Principal Investigator: Joanna Asadoorian RDH, BScD, MSc

Award: $3,000

Study Objectives:

The objective of this project is to articulate entry-to-practice competencies that would be used to support dental hygiene education, accreditation, examination and regulation. While the dental hygiene profession has several national documents pertaining to entry-to-practice issues, there is no common national standard. The need for such as standard is becoming increasingly important with the divergence of entry-to-practice educational models across Canada, programs being implemented in new jurisdictions, and the entrance of multiple post-secondary organizations in the educational sector. The development of the competencies commenced with the implementation of a workshop to generate the initial draft ability statements. The project will conduct a national survey and focus groups to validate and refine a competency profile.

This is an innovative project with a high level of importance to the dental hygiene profession.