About DHET

(Texas Dental Hygiene Educators Association now known as Dental Hygiene Educators of Texas)

When it all began, as the story is told…

In the year of 2001, a group of dental hygiene educators saw the need for a professional organization to collaborate about dental hygiene education. They felt the necessity to have a voice separate from that of the Texas Dental Hygiene Association. The founding group consisted of (in no specific order):

• Maribeth Stitt
• Harold Henson
• Donna Warren-Morris
• Betty Reynard
• Christine Beatty
• Deborah Durham
• Carrie Hobbs

The charter members met in Houston at the SADHA (now known as SCADHA) conference to develop a plan.

At the next legislative session, approximately 2002-2003, legislative bills emerged from Texas Dental Association (TDA) requesting a major change in dental hygiene education that included the preceptor model for clinical education. TDA was STRONG! The bill was gaining great support.

Numerous volunteers from an array of dental hygiene programs walked the floors of the capitol building for weeks discussing the quality of education for our profession. Excellence was the name of the game and the focus (and later became the motto), so the legislators were listening. TDHEA has many legislators backing the organization. Leo Berman, Texas House of Representatives from Tyler, was able to the House to modify the bill to allow preceptor training only in Commissions on Dental Accredited (CODA) dental hygiene programs. This was a success that the bill passed with this stipulation and had a time limit of two years for dental hygiene programs to implement the change.

So…since clinical education via preceptorship did not meet CODA standards, the bill was never enforced. It truly was a gift that we had officially formed TDHEA. It was a reality that the

EDUCATORS HAD A VOICE!

TDHEA banned together and started offering board review sessions for students immediately following SCADHA annual sessions. This allowed funds to be raised. Various faculty members from various institutions volunteered to teach specific content areas during the review sessions.

With the funds raised, TDHEA then hired a lobbyist to support the efforts of dental hygiene educators. Brad Shields who became the lobbyist for TDHEA. Times became tough, when TDHA recruited/hired…our lobbyist away, which resulted in us getting another lobbyist. The board review funds and sessions dwindled away, causing us to lose our lobbyist. Through these challenges, Christine continued to be very involved for a long while acting as our treasurer.

The organization continued to meet annually, while the Directors and Coordinators met biannually.