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, 32 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