One in every six women in Australia experiences physical or sexual violence before the age of sixteen. In 2022, 64% of reported assaults to WA Police were family violence-related. We know that family violence has a significant impact on the health, inclusion, confidence, dignity and financial independence of women.
Sadly, many women cannot afford the high costs of dental treatment needed after suffering abuse, and over time, this erodes self-esteem, which impacts social relationships and economic participation.
Healing Smiles is a group of volunteer dentists who provide pro bono dental treatment to help restore the smiles of survivors of domestic violence. This work is transformational, helping many women to regain their sense of dignity and self-worth.
In this episode of Dental As Anything we talk to oral medicine specialist Jacinta Vu about her work with Healing Smiles. She did her dental training in Perth and then specialist training in Sydney, and works in private practice and as a consultant at the Perth Children’s Hospital, as well as having a teaching role at the University of Western Australia. She helped to found Healing Smiles, a group of volunteer dentists who provide pro bono dental treatment to help restore the smiles of survivors of domestic violence. She has just been formally recognised for her work as the Western Australian Local Hero in the 2025 Australian of the Year Awards.
If you would like to volunteer or donate to Healing Smiles, you can find out more information here.
You can listen to the podcast here, and it is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts - don’t forget to follow/subscribe, and share with your friends.
In case you missed it, you can catch up with the previous episodes of the Dental As Anything podcast here and read news articles here.
We want to hear your views on expanding Medicare to include more dental services.
Are you an Australian dental practitioner? Our research team is interested in hearing from you about access to dental care. We've already heard from hundreds of dental practitioners like you. They are telling us that many of their patients are experiencing challenges in accessing dental care, and there are a range of different suggestions that could be considered to help those patients.
We want to make sure that your opinions are considered too. The questionnaire will only take 10-15 minutes to complete.
The aim of this project is to investigate Australian dental practitioner attitudes to expanding Medicare to include more dental services.
The study involves a short (15min) questionnaire. Following the questionnaire, participants can opt to also participate in an online interview with the researchers to further explore relevant issues
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