Upfront: This is a summary review of two recent stories out of Michigan. We call it The Shame Report because, at one end, the death of 2-year-old Isaac Lethbridge is such a powerful reminder that child abuse and neglect is about totally helpless children, victimized in so many ways by their home environments, and then re-victimized by the very system responsible for their care and safety.

The second story, still in the realm of shame, involves a lawsuit filed in August 2006, on behalf of 19,000 Michigan children by Children's Rights Inc., a national organization advocating on behalf of abused and neglected children. It seeks to bring to account a state system that has badly failed to protect its most vulnerable citizens, and is more hopeful because the State appears to be cooperating. -- Hershel Sarbin

Losing Isaac-Part 1
"Isaac Lethbridge traveled a painful journey in his 2 years. He was neglected by his parents, moved through three troubled foster homes in less than a year, and was dead by last August 16, beaten and burned, his collarbone broken. What happened to him under Michigan's supervision exposes a child welfare system so overwhelmed and lax in its oversight that, despite attempts at reform, children are still being placed in danger." This was a lead paragraph in a superb but heart-wrenching three-part series that appeared in The Detroit Free Press this past January. The headline? "How State's Big System Failed This Little Boy." (www.freep.com)

Reporters Ruby L.Bailey, Jack Kresnak and Tina Lam said that an examination of court records, trial testimony and state investigative reports showed that during his 11 months in foster care, there were many people who could have saved Isaac. No one did.

Editor's Note: We commend to you The Casey Journalism Center's meaningful coverage of this painful story, with thoughtful links to related material at http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/99999999/NEWS05/70126035&template=theme&theme=ISAAC012007.

Children's Rights, Inc. Files Class Action suit in Michigan-Part 2
On Aug. 8, 2006 the advocacy group Children's Rights, joined by local Michigan advocates, filed suit in federal court against Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Director of the Department of Human Services Marianne Udow on behalf of the nearly 19,000 foster children who continue to be harmed in the State's child welfare system. The complaint charges that the Michigan foster care system has been plagued by fundamental services and resource shortcomings for years, and that abused and neglected children are suffering as a result

Michigan has the seventh-largest population of foster children in the country, but ranks in the nation's bottom 12 states in the ratio of state and local dollars directed to help these children," said Sara Bartosz, lead Children's Rights attorney on the case. "The State is not making the investment of state resources necessary to protect children," she said. Rick Landau, of Dykema Gossett, PLLC, a Detroit-based acting as co-counsel with Children's Rights, added, "This lawsuit is about doing the right thing: Speaking truth to power in defense of our most vulnerable children." The hopeful news is that the state immediately agreed to enter into settlement negotiations with plaintiffs to resolve the lawsuit. For a detailed, and disturbing, recitation of the State's failures, visit http://www.childrensrights.org/.