Incidents and accidents
Filing a report that will still hold up months later, and what happens to it afterwards.
When to file
File for anything that left a mark, needed first aid, involved a head, or that you'd want a record of if a parent asked next week. When you're unsure, file — an unnecessary report costs three minutes, and a missing one costs considerably more.
Filing a report
Incident forms capture what happened, where, which body part was involved, what was done about it, and who witnessed it. Required fields must be completed before the report saves, which is deliberate — a half-finished incident record is the one that fails you later.
File the same day, ideally the same hour. Detail decays fast, and a report written from memory at pickup time reads like one.
Writing it well
Write what you observed, not what you concluded. "Fell from the second step of the climber, landed on left knee, cried immediately, ice applied for ten minutes, resumed play" is a record. "Minor fall, child fine" is a summary of an opinion.
Avoid naming other children in the narrative. Refer to "another child" — the report may be shared with a family, and other families' children aren't theirs to read about.
Telling the family
Reports can capture a signature in person at pickup. Tell the family in person as well as in the app — a parent who learns their child was hurt from a phone notification while driving home is a conversation nobody wants.
Follow your center's policy and your state's requirements for notifying families immediately rather than at pickup. The app records what happened; it doesn't replace the phone call.
The audit trail
Reports are audit-trailed. Edits are recorded rather than overwriting the original, and who acknowledged what is kept.
That's a feature, not friction. A record that could be quietly rewritten afterwards is worth very little at the moment you most need it to be believed.
Exporting
Reports export for licensing. See Licensing reports.
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