Problems with center preceded Isaac's case
Problems with center preceded Isaac's case
License renewed despite concerns
January 28, 2007
JACK KRESNAK
FREE PRESS
Despite several licensing violations by the Lula Belle Stewart Center and a 2004 state report that criticized the agency over the beating death of a 4-year-old foster child that year, the Michigan Department of Human Services renewed the Detroit-based agency's license to place children in 2005.
A Free Press review of hundreds of pages of state records found many of the same problems in the case of 2-year-old Isaac Lethbridge -- problems that should have been addressed in previous cases.
Among past problems:
• A foster child placed by Lula Belle suffered a skull fracture and was not given immediate medical treatment in 2003. Authorities were unable to determine who caused the injury. However, when Lula Belle workers licensed the foster home, they did not know the foster mother had been investigated for possible abuse at her day care center a few years earlier.
• A Lula Belle foster care worker and supervisor received written reprimands from the state DHS in 2004 after 4-year-old Cesol Thompson was killed by his father's 18-year-old girlfriend during a weekend home visit. The workers had failed to report suspected abuse by Johnetta Sullivan, who is now in prison for second-degree murder. Also, the workers did not investigate her background as they are required for a new person living with the child's parent.
A report issued a few months later by the state Office of Children's Ombudsman, the state's watchdog agency for children, found no fault with Child Protective Services, but was critical of Lula Belle for not reporting its previous suspicions to protective services in the Thompson case. Lula Belle officials agreed to retrain all staff members on their legal duty to report suspected abuse.
A key issue in Isaac's death two years later was the failure of Lula Belle workers to report suspected abuse to protective services.
The DHS Office of Children and Adult Licensing, as part of a regular review, concluded in July 2005 that Lula Belle should continue supervising nearly 200 foster children.
In making the decision, the state checked eight of the center's 79 foster home files and eight of 179 files on foster children.
The sampling found that Lula Belle was in compliance with "all applicable rules and statutes" even though in more than half of the cases reviewed, Lula Belle had not arranged for physical exams for the children and Lula Belle workers had not visited the children in their homes as often as required.
Nevertheless, a state licensing official recommended that Lula Belle continue operating under a regular license once it submitted a corrective action plan.
"What we found there wasn't evidence that things were that serious," state licensing director James Gale told the Free Press, referring to the 2005 report. "We have to rely on the agency to give us accurate information."
A year later, state licensing and child abuse workers found an array of serious problems in an investigation spurred by Isaac's beating death Aug. 16: Several Lula Belle foster children were in dangerous or unacceptable placements, 21 children could not immediately be found, and several were not in the foster homes reported by Lula Belle or were living in other states without DHS approval.
Documentation in many Lula Belle files, the DHS found, contained errors or outright falsehoods. And once again, Lula Belle's workers often had not made home visits to check on foster children, in some cases for months.