As daycare injury lawyers, we’ve gotten a lot of questions over the years about what to do after a daycare injury. Most of the time, we recommend that parents report the incident to the proper authorities after seeking medical care for their child. Today, we want to discuss why reporting incidents to the proper authorities is so essential in the aftermath of a daycare injury.
What Can Go Wrong at Texas Daycares?
In Texas, daycares are required to follow the rules and regulations laid out by the state of Texas through the Department of Family and Protective Services.
These regulations are called the state’s minimum standards for childcare licensing. All incidents involving serious injury or the potential risk of serious injury to a child must be self-reported to the state by the daycare. Additionally, the daycare is required to document the incident on an incident report and provide parents with a copy of it detailing exactly what happened.
Unfortunately, many of the bad daycares we’ve seen will either pretend an incident never happened or won’t notify the parents of the incident.
Why It's Essential to Report Daycare Incidents to the State of Texas
That’s why we tell parents to report all incidents to the state. Once the state receives a report, they will conduct an independent investigation into the incident to determine if the daycare violated any regulations that could have prevented the harm caused to the child.
The investigation usually involves an inspection of the daycare and interviews with children, caregivers, daycare directors, and parents.
After the state conducts its investigation, it’ll write up a report of their findings and provide it to the parties involved.
They also publish their findings online so that others are aware of the violations. Publishing the findings of an investigation helps other parents who are looking at enrolling their child in that daycare know if the daycare has had prior issues with mistreatment or neglect.
Additionally, if you end up pursuing a legal claim against the daycare, a comprehensive report from the state can help prove that the daycare put your child in danger. Even what might seem like small violations should be reported. Daycares cannot get away with the mistreatment of innocent kids.
Learn More About How to Report a Daycare in Texas
If you want to learn more about reporting a daycare, you can do that by going to our website and clicking the “report a daycare” tab.
If your child was injured at daycare, and you want to know what additional steps to take afterwards, download our free guide, Five Steps to Take after a Daycare Injury, linked here. And finally, don’t hesitate to contact our team with any further questions. We’re here to keep you and your family moving forward.
