Recommendations to Improve Foster Care.

• Position: Brief Article

The American Academy of Pediatrics has released recommendations designed to ensure optimal brain development in children entering the foster care system. They focus on youngsters under age five, when brain growth and development are most active. Specifically, the anatomic brain structures that govern personality traits, learning processes, and coping with stress and emotions are established, strengthened, and made permanent during these early years. Recommendations include the following:

* Supportive nurturing by primary caregivers is crucial to early brain growth and the physical, emotional, and developmental needs of children.

* Kids need continuity, consistency, and predictability from their caregiver. Multiple foster home placements can be injurious.

* Attachment, sense of time, and the developmental level of the child are key factors in his or her adjustment to external and internal stress.

* Those in foster care should have comprehensive periodic assessments of their strengths and needs and receive the services and supports necessary to make foster care a healing process.

* Pediatricians need to...