Leadership magazine Sept/Oct 2016 V46 No 1 | Page 32
vices. Clearly, this is unacceptable, especially
given the rich advancements in early literacy
interventions evident in many of our schools.
Reading specialists are well suited to provide targeted screening and instruction in all
areas that comprise the domain of reading.
Recommendation No. 2.
Leverage and enhance existing supports
to work more effectively with this population, including screening, collaboration,
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Leadership
early intervention and transitional support:
• Screen children as early as preschool to
identify pre-literacy skills, and provide high
quality literacy instruction to all children in
foster care.
• Implement schoolwide Multi-Tiered
System of Support (MTSS) interventions
across all grade levels.
• Provide strategic transitional support as
students enter kindergarten, sixth and ninth
grades.
• Ensure students have access to literature
that is grade level and reading ability accessible, engaging and reflecting the realities
children in the foster care system experience.
• Ensure students have access to a curriculum that reflects the family diversity that
exists today and will flourish in the future.
• Review your library's holdings so that
children can check out books that ref lect
their lived experiences. Websites such as
Goodreads serve as excellent sources of current books about a variety of special topics
(www.best-childrens-books.com/childrensbooks-about-adoption.html).
Social and emotional needs, including
trauma intervention: Intuitively, we know
that children and youth in foster care have
challenges related not only to their initial
trauma but the effects of multiple transitions
warrant considerable attention because it inflicts a secondary trauma on children. What
may not be so readily understood is the effect
trauma from maltreatment has on the brain.
Post-traumatic stress disorder rates found
to exist in children and youth in foster care
are comparable to Vietnam war veterans and
those who served in Afghanistan and U.S.Iraq conflicts (Ai, Foster, Pecora, Delaney
and Rodriguez, 2013).
This means that children’s ability to plan,
monitor, and regulate their emotions and
behavior are diminished. Noteworthy is that
the symptoms of PTSD are additive and
may not appear until adolescence (Ai, et al.).
Other effects found to have been associated
with PTSD are developmental challenges
and attachment difficulties (Black, Woodworth, Tremblay and Carpenter, 2012).
When attachment breaks down, learning is
thwarted because children's ability to trust,
inherent to the social process that underlies
learning, is lost.
Commitment and advocacy by caring
adults, which permeates the lives of most
children, are noticeably absent for many
children in foster care. Researchers have
substantiated that one committed and caring individual buffers the effects of trauma.
Within the context of school, this means
that teachers and administrators play a vital
role. Foster youth frequently report feelings
of loss of power, being unwanted, insecurity
and isolation. These feelings were reversed