Wisconsin Department of Children and Families - Division of Early Care and Education
Bureau of Early Care Regulation
Child Care Licensing Procedure Manual
The following report-writing principles should be followed when preparing a thorough and clearly written complaint investigation report:
The report should be well organized, concise and written in plain English. The report should be something that any reader – a member of the public, a reporter, a family member, an attorney – could read and easily understand. Unclear and unnecessary words should be eliminated.
The report should include first and last names and all contact information for all individuals interviewed.
The report should be written in chronological order.
Use first person, past tense and active voice. For example, it is clearer to state “I observed…” rather than “the licensing specialist observed”.
The report should be objective, factual, descriptive and verifiable. It should not contain derogatory comments, subjective observations such as “I feel” and “I sense”, speculations, second hand information that is not verifiable, guesses at the licensee’s motivations, or the licensing specialist’s personal biases and feelings about the situation or the behavior of the persons involved in the situation. Confine the report to factual information that is information that is supported by one of the five senses, and avoid opinion statements.
The report should provide enough detail to support the findings and conclusions, but need not detail everything that happened during the course of the investigation. If information is not relevant, it doesn’t belong in the report.
The report should be clear in its conclusions so that every reader gets the same facts and knows precisely and unambiguously what the licensing specialist has concluded concerning the allegation and what subsequent actions will be taken. The report must address who, what, when, where, and how the licensing specialist knows. If the reader can ask a relevant question after reading the report, the report isn’t complete.
Once the field notes have been used to write the complaint investigation findings report, it is not necessary to keep the notes and they should be destroyed. However, if the licensing specialist had an interviewee sign notes taken during an interview to document accuracy, these should be retained for documentation and uploaded into WISCCRS. Field notes and everything in writing that is retained is discoverable if the case goes to a hearing.
This page last updated 10/2021.