People experiencing homelessness face multiple barriers when attempting to access dental treatment. Financial constraints, lack of a fixed address, mental and physical health problems, and deep distrust of services are among the many hurdles that make standard referral pathways fail this demographic. Our solution is to meet these patients where they are, in a space they feel comfortable.
Our charity operates two repurposed London double-decker buses providing mobile targeted outreach and emergency clinical care across London:
The Outreach Bus: Driving for Change (DFC)
- The Objective: Our Dental Care Professionals focus on trust-building, oral health education, and rapport-building alongside our wraparound services (including housing support, barbering/hairdressing, drug and alcohol support). We offer advice and triage patients to our clinical bus and/or other local dental services for treatment and ongoing care.
- Ideal For: Dental professionals who want to focus on oral health education, trust-building, and
preparing individuals for clinical intervention. We are also looking for any other health professionals
who may wish to offer their time such as GPs, Nurses, Mental Health Professionals and Podiatrists. - Locations: Croydon, Kingston, Newham, Richmond and Wandsworth.
The Clinical Bus: Smile for Change (SFC)
- The Objective: Our dental team operates a CQC-registered mobile dental surgery, providing urgent care to stabilise patients (referred from the Outreach Bus) before an onward referral pathway to long-term care.
- Ideal For: Clinicians with strong clinical pragmatism who want to provide immediate emergency intervention and stabilisation before coordinating onward community referrals.
- Location: Peckham
Why Volunteer?
By giving your time on our buses, you will be directly supporting people experiencing rough sleeping in eliminating their dental pain and regaining their trust in dental services. This preventative approach helps reduce the overuse of emergency NHS services as well as the likelihood of patients losing teeth completely.
How to Apply
- Dental professionals: email your CV to mohamed.b@changeplease.org
- Other Healthcare professionals: email your CV to rachel.e@changeplease.org
Note: Due to the importance of building consistent relationships with our service users, we are unable to accept one-off volunteers. We ask for a regular ongoing commitment with a minimum of one shift every two months for six months.
