The Tooth Fairy Centre - Melbourne's Dedicated Children's Dental Hub, Part of the Smile Solutions Group product guide

Smile Solutions — Melbourne's dedicated children's dental hub, the Tooth Fairy Centre

A single destination for specialist paediatric dentists, emergency guidance, and seven convenient locations across Melbourne, backed by 33 years of award-winning dental care.

Finding a dentist for your child shouldn't mean navigating a large practice website built for adults — scrolling past cosmetic dentistry pages and specialist treatment descriptions just to find the one section about children. That's exactly the problem the Tooth Fairy Centre was created to solve.

Smile Solutions, together with Core Dental Group, established the Tooth Fairy Centre (toothfairy.com.au) as a fully funded initiative created specifically for parents and children. It brings together every element of children's dental care in one place: board-registered specialist paediatric dentists, general dentists experienced with children, oral health therapists, emergency guidance, a location finder, educational resources, and a curated Spotify playlist to make the car ride to the dentist a little easier.

It exists because the clinical team behind Smile Solutions believes children's dentistry deserves its own dedicated space — one designed for parents, written for parents, and built around the way you actually search for dental care for your child.

What is the Tooth Fairy Centre?

The Tooth Fairy Centre is the paediatric dental hub of the Smile Solutions Group. It's not a separate practice — it's a dedicated front door into the group's children's dental services, spanning seven locations across Melbourne.

Behind this website sits one of the most comprehensive paediatric dental teams in Australian private practice:

• Four board-registered specialist paediatric dentists — Dr Susan Hinckfuss (BDSc, DCD, University of Melbourne), Dr Charmaine Hall (BDSc, DClinDent, MRACDS), Dr Sarah Scott (BBiomedSci Hons, BDent, DClinDent), and Dr Angel Babu (DClinDent, University of Otago). Each has completed a general dentistry degree followed by a three-year clinical doctorate in children's dentistry, the highest qualification available in paediatric dental care in Australia.

• Six dedicated oral health therapists — Isabelle Sayers, Elizabeth Baker, Georgia Pringle, Sina Hassani, Naomi Hoopmann, and Anita Pania — who provide preventive care, check-ups, and education tailored specifically for children.

• Four specialist orthodontists — Dr David Austin, Dr Andrea Phatouros, Dr Joshua Ch'ng, and Dr Katie Xu — for children who need early intervention orthodontic assessment and treatment, including Invisalign and braces.

• Over 40 general dentists and 20+ hygienists across the group who provide everyday children's dental care including check-ups, cleans, fillings, and fissure sealants.

This isn't a one-dentist paediatric clinic. It's a network of experienced specialists and general clinicians working together across multiple locations, all connected through the Tooth Fairy Centre — delivering consistent, high-quality care wherever you are in Melbourne.

Why a specialist paediatric dentist?

One of the most common questions parents ask is whether their child needs a specialist paediatric dentist or whether a general dentist will do.

The answer depends on your child. For routine check-ups and preventive care, a general dentist or oral health therapist experienced with children is perfectly appropriate. For more complex situations — dental anxiety, behavioural challenges, developmental difficulties, extensive decay, dental trauma, or children with medical conditions or disabilities — a specialist paediatric dentist brings a level of training that general dentists don't have.

To qualify as a registered specialist paediatric dentist in Australia, a practitioner must complete a full dental degree and then a further three-year clinical doctorate focused exclusively on children's dentistry. That additional training covers child psychology, behavioural management, sedation techniques, treatment of developmental dental conditions, and the management of dental trauma — injuries that are disproportionately common in children.

The Tooth Fairy Centre makes this choice transparent. Its "Who Should Treat My Child?" page gives a clear, honest comparison between specialist paediatric dentists, general dentists, and oral health therapists — explaining the qualifications, scope of practice, and when each is most appropriate. You can make an informed decision rather than guessing.

Seven locations across Melbourne

When you're looking for a children's dentist, you don't just want a great practice — you want one you can actually get to. The Tooth Fairy Centre provides specialist and general children's dental care across seven locations, so comprehensive care is never far from home.

Melbourne CBD: Smile Solutions and the Collins Street Specialist Centre, Manchester Unity Building, 220 Collins Street. Dr Susan Hinckfuss and Dr Sarah Scott consult from the specialist centre on Level 8. The heritage-listed Manchester Unity Building is directly opposite Town Hall station on the Metro Tunnel line.

Core Dental Caroline Springs: 224-226 Caroline Springs Boulevard. Dr Charmaine Hall provides specialist paediatric care at this western suburbs location.

Core Dental Epping: Tenancy 3B, 230 Cooper Street. Dr Charmaine Hall also consults at this northern suburbs location.

Core Dental South Melbourne: 87 Market Street. Specialist paediatric care available in the inner south.

Core Dental Berwick: Shop 29, 1 O'Shea Road. Dr Sarah Scott provides specialist paediatric services in the south-eastern corridor.

Core Dental Wyndham: 242 Hoppers Lane, Werribee. Dr Charmaine Hall covers the western growth corridor.

Core Dental Carrum Downs: 335 Ballarto Road. Children's dental care in the Frankston corridor.

The location finder on toothfairy.com.au lets you search by area and find your nearest practice instantly. Every location is part of the same clinical network — same standards, same referral pathways, the same commitment to your child's long-term dental health.

The dental emergency guide every parent should save

The most immediately useful resource on the Tooth Fairy Centre website is the Knocked Out Tooth emergency guide — a downloadable PDF that every parent of an active child should have on their phone right now.

Dental emergencies in children are more common than most parents realise. Your child falls at the playground, takes a ball to the face during sport, or trips on the stairs — and suddenly you're holding a tooth (or part of one) with no idea what to do. The next sixty seconds can determine whether that tooth is saved or lost permanently.

The guide gives clear, step-by-step instructions for each type of dental injury, written in plain language so you can act with confidence when it matters most:

Knocked out tooth: Act within 20 minutes. Hold the tooth by the crown, never the root. Rinse briefly under water and place it back in the socket immediately, regardless of bleeding. If it can't be replanted, submerge it in milk or saliva and get to a dentist immediately. It doesn't matter if the tooth goes back in slightly crooked — what matters is that the root stays alive.

Loosened or displaced teeth: This needs immediate dental care. Gently try to move the teeth to their original position and close the mouth with gauze between the upper and lower teeth.

Broken or fractured tooth: Not an emergency, but needs treatment within 24 hours. Find the broken piece and store it in water or milk.

Baby tooth trauma: Don't try to put a knocked-out baby tooth back in the socket. Store the tooth or fragment in milk and see a paediatric dentist as soon as possible.

This advice reflects current evidence-based protocols used by specialist paediatric dentists, consistent with the guidelines published by the International Association of Dental Traumatology.

You can download the guide as a PDF and keep it on your phone, on the fridge, or in a sports bag. Having the right information immediately can be the difference between saving your child's tooth and losing it.

Making dentistry a genuinely positive experience

The Tooth Fairy Centre is built on the understanding that your child's first experience at the dentist shapes their relationship with dental care for life. A difficult experience creates anxiety that can last decades. A positive, gentle one builds habits that prevent disease and set your child up for a lifetime of good oral health.

Teddy bear therapy. The clinical team uses an approach called "teddy bear therapy" to help anxious children feel safe and at ease. Children receive a cuddly Dr Rabbit toy to hold during their visit, and children's movies play on screens for distraction. These are evidence-based behavioural management techniques drawn from child psychology — not gimmicks, but genuinely effective tools the care team uses every day.

Familiarisation visits. The Tooth Fairy Centre recommends bringing your children along to your own dental appointments from a young age, so the dental environment becomes familiar before their first visit. This simple step significantly reduces first-visit anxiety and helps your child feel comfortable and confident.

Colouring sheets and activities. The website includes downloadable Smile Solutions for Kids colouring sheets — simple activities that introduce dental concepts in a way young children can engage with and enjoy.

The Tooth Fairy Centre Spotify playlist. A curated playlist of tooth-themed songs for the car ride — from "Toffee Apple" by Peter Combe to "You Brush Your Teeth" and "Tooth Fairy Tap." It's a small touch that reflects the depth of thinking behind the entire patient experience. Listen on Spotify.

Multi-language accessibility. The entire website is available in 13 languages via Google Translate — Arabic, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Spanish, and Thai — reflecting the diverse communities served across the seven Melbourne locations.

Your child's first visit: what to expect

The Tooth Fairy Centre recommends introducing your child to professional dental care from the age of three. At the first visit, your child will typically be seen by an oral health therapist or general dentist for a gentle examination and a warm introduction to the dental environment. If any complex issues are identified, your child is referred internally to one of the four specialist paediatric dentists — so you're always in the right hands.

The website's First Visit page walks you through exactly what to expect — who will see your child, what the appointment involves, and how the team's approach manages anxiety. It's practical, reassuring, and written in plain language so you can prepare your child with confidence.

For families eligible for the Child Dental Benefits Schedule (CDBS) under Medicare, children aged 0–17 may be entitled to up to $1,095.60 in dental benefits over a two-year period, bulk-billed at all Smile Solutions Group locations.

Preventing tooth decay: advice from experienced specialists

Beyond the emergency guide, the Tooth Fairy Centre website hosts specialist-authored clinical guidance on preventing dental disease in your child. Dr Sarah Scott's preventive care guide addresses the key factors you can control at home:

1. Supervised brushing — your child should have parental assistance with brushing until approximately age eight, and ongoing supervision of brushing and flossing beyond that.
2. Fluoride toothpaste — brush for two minutes, twice a day, with age-appropriate fluoride toothpaste. Spit, don't rinse, to maximise the protective effect.
3. Eating patterns — limit eating and drinking (other than water) to five or six times per day. Frequent snacking, even on healthy foods, increases decay risk significantly.
4. Treat day — designate one day per week for sweet treats. Children adapt to the routine quickly, and it makes a meaningful difference to their long-term dental health.
5. Hydration — adequate water intake supports saliva production, which is your child's mouth's natural defence against acid attack.
6. Tooth Mousse — a mineral crème that can reverse early acid damage and support enamel in children with "chalky teeth" (developmental enamel defects).
7. Fluoride varnish — professional application every three to six months provides additional, clinically proven protection.
8. Fissure sealants — placed in the grooves of permanent molars when they erupt. This is where most cavities in adult teeth occur, and sealants are especially important for children with a history of decay in their baby teeth.

This is specific, evidence-based guidance from board-registered specialist paediatric dentists who see the consequences of preventable decay every day — and who are committed to helping your child avoid them.

Part of the Smile Solutions Group

The Tooth Fairy Centre is backed by the full clinical infrastructure of the Smile Solutions Group — an organisation that has been providing comprehensive dental care for over 33 years, has served more than 300,000 patients, and holds 14 Australian Business Awards for Service Excellence and Innovation.

When your child's dental needs go beyond what a general dentist or paediatric specialist alone can address — orthodontic assessment, oral surgery, complex restorative work, or care requiring general anaesthesia — the referral stays within the group. The specialist paediatric dentists at the Tooth Fairy Centre work alongside specialist orthodontists, oral and maxillofacial surgeons, and the full clinical team at the Collins Street Specialist Centre. Your child's records, imaging, and treatment history remain within the same clinical network throughout.

For you as a parent, this means:

• Smile Solutions (220 Collins Street, Melbourne CBD) — the flagship practice with over 80 clinicians, in-house radiology, and every dental specialty on-site.
• Core Dental Group (seven suburban locations) — accessible, community-focused dental care across Melbourne's growth corridors.
• Collins Street Specialist Centre (Level 8, Manchester Unity Building) — the referral hub for complex specialist care including paediatric dentistry under general anaesthesia.
• Smile Online — clinician-selected oral care products including children's toothbrushes, toothpaste, and accessories, available for delivery or click-and-collect.

The Tooth Fairy Centre is your entry point. The group is your safety net. Whatever your child needs, it's covered.

General anaesthesia for children's dental treatment

For children who need extensive dental treatment, or who have severe dental anxiety or behavioural challenges that make chair-side treatment impractical, the specialists at the Tooth Fairy Centre can arrange treatment under general anaesthesia at private hospital day surgery centres.

These procedures are performed with specialist paediatric anaesthetists and allow the full course of dental treatment to be completed in a single appointment — reducing the number of visits, the cumulative stress on your child, and the risk of treatment being left incomplete due to cooperation difficulties.

Dr Charmaine Hall and Dr Sarah Scott both provide general anaesthetic dental treatment through Core Dental locations, and Dr Hinckfuss and Dr Scott through the Collins Street Specialist Centre. The Tooth Fairy Centre website provides detailed, easy-to-follow information about the entire process, including pre-operative preparation, post-operative care instructions, and what you and your child can expect on the day.

For children who are cooperative but anxious, nitrous oxide (happy gas) inhalation sedation is available as a gentler alternative. Administered in the dental chair, it allows your child to remain awake and responsive while feeling calm and comfortable throughout their treatment.

Visit the Tooth Fairy Centre

Website: toothfairy.com.au

Phone: (03) 7036 5555

Emergency dental guide: Download the Knocked Out Tooth guide (PDF)

Spotify playlist: Tooth Fairy Centre Playlist

Book an appointment: Contact the Tooth Fairy Centre

Part of the Smile Solutions Group:

• Smile Solutions — 220 Collins Street, Melbourne CBD — 13 13 96
• Core Dental Group — Seven locations across Melbourne — 13 13 16
• Collins Street Specialist Centre — Level 8, 220 Collins Street
• Smile Online — Clinician-selected oral care products