Quick summary
- Regulation 16 requires a record of any accident, injury or incident involving a child.
- Severity should determine urgency of parent communication, not convenience.
- A useful report is factual and specific, what happened, what was done, who was involved, not vague or defensive.
- Records should be signed by the staff member involved and acknowledged by the parent.
- Retain incident records for the same period as other child-related records, generally 2 years from when the child stops attending.
What needs to be logged
Regulation 16 requires a written record of any accident, injury or incident involving a child. In practice, most services set their own threshold slightly below "requires medical attention", logging anything beyond the most trivial, everyday knock, applied consistently rather than selectively. Consistency matters more than the exact threshold: a service that logs every fall for one child but not another has a record that won't hold up well if it's ever scrutinised.
What belongs in a good report
A useful incident report is factual, specific, and free of speculation about cause or blame unless directly witnessed. It should include:
- What happened, in plain, specific terms, not "was injured" but what actually occurred.
- When and where it happened.
- Who witnessed it and who responded.
- What action was taken (first aid given, ice applied, parent contacted).
- Whether medical attention was sought, and the outcome.
Avoid vague language that reads as defensive rather than informative. "The child appeared to trip" is more useful and more honest than trying to explain away what happened.
When to tell parents, and how
Severity should drive urgency, not staff convenience. Anything involving the head, anything requiring medical attention, or anything that would reasonably alarm a parent if they heard about it secondhand should be communicated as soon as practically possible, by phone or in person, not left for a written note at collection. Minor, everyday incidents are commonly covered as part of the normal collection conversation, alongside the written record.
Signing and acknowledgement
The staff member who witnessed or responded to the incident should complete and sign the report. It's standard good practice for the parent or guardian to also sign at collection, acknowledging they've seen and understood what happened. This creates a shared, timestamped record rather than one party's account alone.
Retention
Incident records fall within the same general retention expectations as other records relating to a child, typically kept for 2 years from the date the child stops attending the service. Given incident records can occasionally become relevant well after the fact, it's worth being particularly careful not to let these lapse or go missing before that period ends.
Practical advice
- Set a clear, written threshold for what gets logged, and apply it the same way for every child.
- Complete the report as close to the incident as possible, while details are fresh and accurate.
- Default to calling a parent when in doubt about urgency. It's rarely a mistake to over-communicate a genuine concern.
- Review incident patterns periodically (same child, same location, same time of day). A cluster can reveal something a single report wouldn't show.
How Tot Tracker helps
Tot Tracker logs incidents with the time, staff member, and details recorded at the point of entry, notifies parents through the app immediately for anything flagged as urgent, and keeps a signed, timestamped record attached to the child's profile, reviewable individually or across the service to spot patterns.