Client Children’s Oral Health Network of Maine (COHN)
Practice Area Enhancing Clinical Care Access
BME Strategies is partnering with the Children’s Oral Health Network to expand the next phase of Maine’s oral health workforce development, designing scalable training and experiential career pathways to expand preventive care access statewide.
In the spring of 2026, the Children’s Oral Health Network (COHN) and the Maine Oral Health Funders partnered with BME Strategies to build on successful workforce initiatives and plan for their next phase of sustainability and growth. COHN’s mission is to ensure all children in Maine grow up free from preventable dental disease. While their initial workforce pilot programs were successful, impending grant sunsets and a shifting statewide healthcare landscape created an opportunity to bring in additional strategic and implementation capacity.
BME Strategies is providing additional research, strategy, and program design capacity to help COHN build on its existing workforce initiatives, strengthen their sustainability, and identify opportunities to connect oral health with broader statewide workforce development efforts.
Maine continues to experience oral health workforce shortages that contribute to barriers to preventive dental care, particularly for children and communities with more limited access to dental services:
In response to these workforce and access needs, COHN launched the Oral Health Industry Partnership (OHIP) in 2022. Through OHIP, COHN developed a micro-credential training program that supported nearly 190 professionals across healthcare and community settings in building foundational oral health knowledge and skills. However, when state grant funding sunsetted at the end of 2025, COHN faced an inflection point. COHN sought additional capacity and implementation support to sustain this momentum, respond to the evolving Rural Health Transformation Program funding landscape and expand long-term career pathways and workforce development opportunities.
Building on COHN’s existing workforce initiatives, BME is providing research, strategy, and program design capacity to support the next phase of the work. Our approach focuses on three interconnected areas:
BME is leading key informant interviews and focus groups with state agencies, funders, educational institutions, nonprofit dental providers, and other partners to better understand workforce priorities, regional needs, and emerging opportunities. Findings from this engagement will inform COHN’s workforce strategy and help identify opportunities for alignment with Maine’s evolving rural health and workforce landscape.
Building on the foundation of OHIP, BME is working with COHN partners, MCD Global Health and the Maine CDC Oral Health Program, to develop a career exploration and experiential learning initiative that brings the OHN Learning Series into school districts through the Maine CDC School Oral Health Program (SOHP). Through the initiative, participating high school students will:
To broaden opportunities for oral health knowledge and skills to be integrated across healthcare and community settings, BME is building on and refining COHN’s employer engagement strategy. BME is developing an approach to expand the OHN Learning Series across a range of community settings, enabling primary care offices, early childhood education centers, and community paramedicine programs to integrate foundational oral health knowledge and skills into existing patient- and community-facing roles.
Together, BME and our Maine-based partners are developing new career exploration opportunities for students and young adults while expanding opportunities to integrate foundational oral health knowledge and skills across healthcare and community-based roles.
Together, BME and our Maine-based partners are building the foundation to expand oral health career exploration, strengthen foundational oral health skills across community-based roles, and position oral health within broader statewide workforce initiatives. Over time, these efforts are intended to contribute to a stronger workforce and more equitable access to preventive oral health care across Maine.