Lessons Learned About Making Incident Reports At Texas Daycare Centers

When your child is injured at a daycare center, the last thing on our mind (understandably) is making sure an incident report is made in writing and reported. Our Texas daycare injury lawyer presents some of the lessons learned from our prior clients about why it is so important to do this properly.

Get Incident Reports Of The Texas Daycare Injury In Writing 

Picture receiving a call requesting that you come to your child's daycare facility, where you're informed of an incident involving your child. Upon arrival, daycare staff hand your child over to you, reassuring you that the injury sustained during playtime is minor and that your child should recover swiftly. Despite the reassurances and absence of visible injuries, you find yourself without a formal incident report provided in writing.

Subsequently, several months, or perhaps even a year, elapse before you discover that your child has a broken arm. Shockingly, it comes to light that on the day of the incident, the daycare center failed to maintain an appropriate child-to-caregiver ratio, compromising effective supervision. To exacerbate matters, no documentation regarding the incident was ever recorded. Consequently, the daycare center asserts ignorance regarding your child's injury, insinuating that it must have occurred subsequent to your child's departure, as no formal report was made at the time. Such a scenario is not only unjust but also far from truthful. Unfortunately, it's a distressingly common occurrence, with daycare facilities often attempting to evade accountability.

What Do You Do if You Request an Incident Report After a Daycare Injury, but They Won’t Give You One?

We have seen instances where the parents want to complete an incident report, but the daycare center says that they only do them for serious injuries.

Firstly, it's crucial to highlight that a safety system's effectiveness shouldn't solely rely on the outcomes it produces. What really counts is how well it prevents behaviors that could lead to harm, regardless of the severity of those incidents. A reliable daycare should prioritize stopping any risky behaviors, similar to how we keep unqualified truck drivers off the roads to avoid accidents involving heavy vehicles.

Secondly, it's important to question the authority of daycare staff in determining the seriousness of an injury. Many injuries, like brain trauma or nerve damage, aren't visible, and most fractures may not be immediately obvious. Plus, daycare workers usually lack medical training to accurately assess injuries. Therefore, their judgment on what's a significant injury may not be reliable.

If the daycare center does not want you to do an incident report, here is what you can do:

1. Take a piece of paper and write out the date and what happened (to your best understanding) and when it happened (time) and where (daycare facility and exactly what part of the daycare facility).
2. Include details you were told and how the staff acted.
3. Include details of how you found out about the incident.
4. Sign it, make a copy, and hand them a copy, but you keep the original. This is to ensure that you know it exists. If you do this but give the daycare facility your only copy, it may not exist later on.
5. Write down the name of the person that you handed it to – first and last name.

It's important to provide them with a written statement, even if it's just a brief one. Anything is better than leaving the situation undocumented.

Is the Daycare Supposed to Keep All Copies?

The daycare center should retain copies of incident reports, but sadly, this isn't always the case. Moreover, if your child is no longer enrolled at the facility, there's a higher probability that these records may no longer be accessible when a daycare law firm, such as ours, becomes involved later on. While we ideally anticipate that daycare centers maintain comprehensive incident files for training and improvement purposes, the reality is that many fail to engage in proactive measures to learn from past mistakes. This reluctance to learn from previous incidents represents a significant shortcoming in their commitment to quality care and safety.

Should I still Get an Incident Report if There Was No Injury at the Daycare?

Certainly, it's highly recommended. By doing so, the incident will be properly documented and accessible in case of any future incidents involving other children. If a teacher consistently disciplines a child in a manner that contradicts accepted standards, unless it's documented, we wouldn't be aware of it.

Incident reports serve as crucial indicators for anyone affected later on, providing insight into past equipment failures or instances of violent behavior by specific teachers. It's imperative that we can identify red flags within these records, and incident reports play a pivotal role in enabling us to do so.