For weeks we’ve been contemplating Summer Phelps’ wide grin and her cascade of red curls, and the unconscionable abuse that destroyed them both.

But sadly, conclusions about her death likely lie far in the future. The state Children’s Administration will begin a review in June, but results may not be reported to the public for months. Spokane County’s own child death review system is so backlogged by funding cuts that officials just finished reviewing cases from 2005.

A child death review may sound like a dusty bureaucratic procedure. But the process comes to life when you consider the outcome.

Nationally, children’s deaths led to a major public awareness campaign to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It became clear babies needed to go to bed on their backs, not their stomachs. As parents, grandparents and caregivers absorbed the message of the “Back to Sleep” campaign, SIDS deaths in this country dropped by more than 50 percent.

In Spokane County, child death reviews have had similar results. Spokane Regional Health District raised awareness about Shaken Baby Syndrome in 2004. Refrigerator magnets listing tips for calming a crying baby were printed and translated into Russian and Spanish. So was a brochure called “Who’s Watching Your Baby?”

Deaths related to a caregiver angrily shaking a crying baby dropped significantly in Spokane County.

The recent session of the Washington Legislature also produced concrete results of death reviews. New laws named for 4-year-old Sirita Sotelo and 2-year-old Raphael Gomez will help protect the lives of other foster children.

Yet state funding cuts, inconsistent reporting and a lack of coordination have diminished the capacity of the state to conduct these reviews. In 2004, 746 children died in Washington. Yet only 83 of those deaths were examined.

Even worse, Idaho’s program lost all funding. It’s the only state in the nation that does not conduct child death reviews.

Had the entire country taken that approach, we might have neither Megan’s laws, which require community notification about sex offenders, or the Amber Alert System, which helps find missing children.

Both Washington and Idaho should reinstate funding to provide uniform statewide reviews of children’s fatalities. Reports in all of these cases should be timely and thorough.

Those children and grandchildren belong to us all. We owe them, and the generations ahead, the public lessons that only their deaths can provide.