An incident is something that happened, with a time and the people involved. If you're unsure whether something qualifies, record it — an incident that turns out to be minor costs nothing, and one that was never written down cannot be reconstructed later.

Choose the type carefully

The type is not just a label. It decides what ARC does next, so it's worth getting right.

Types are grouped into nine categories:

Safeguarding — allegations of abuse or neglect, CSE, CCE, grooming, bullying, peer-on-peer abuse, radicalisation
Behaviour — aggression, property damage, disruptive behaviour, non-compliance
Missing and absence — missing from care, unauthorised absence, failure to return
Self-harm and mental health — self-harm, suicide attempt or ideation, mental health crisis, emotional distress
Health and medication — medication errors, medical emergencies, injury, illness, hospital admission
Substance misuse — alcohol, drugs, smoking or vaping, suspected intoxication
Criminal or police-related — theft, assault, criminal damage, police involvement, arrest
Online safety — inappropriate internet use, sharing explicit images, online grooming, social media issues
Other significant events

What certain types trigger

Some types carry consequences beyond the record:

Safeguarding types — including CSE, CCE, grooming, self-harm, suicidal ideation, arrest of a child and the online grooming types — mark the incident as safeguarding, which changes who sees it and how it surfaces to your manager and the DSL.

Missing and absence types unlock the missing-episode detail and the Return Home Interview that follows a young person's return. If you record a missing episode as something else, the interview won't be prompted — and there's a 72-hour clock on it.

Choose the type that matches what happened, not the one that feels least severe.

Recording it

Record it as close to the event as you can, while you still remember the sequence. Plainly, without softening it.

Choose the Child and the Incident Type. The other fields are:

Occurred At and Reported At — date and time of each
Location — where it happened, for example the lounge, garden or school car park
Events leading up to incident — what was happening beforehand, and what the young person was doing that led to it
What happened — the incident itself, in the order it happened. Be factual and objective: who, what, when, where and how
Immediate Actions Taken — interventions, notifications or safety measures
Staff Involved and Police Involvement, if they apply

Your company may have added extra questions to some incident types, or its own incident types. They appear on the form once you choose the type, and any marked required must be answered before you send the incident for review. A draft can be saved without them.

The child, type, both times, Events leading up to incident and What happened are marked as required. If a physical intervention was used, record it from the incident page once the incident is saved.

Whether the incident has to be notified to Ofsted is not on this form. That is the manager's decision, made when they review it.

A medication error can be turned into an incident by a manager; see Review medication errors.

Your manager is notified as soon as it's created. You don't need to chase separately, but if something needs acting on now, tell someone. A notification is not a substitute for saying it out loud.

The lifecycle

An incident moves through five states, shown on the badge at the top:

Draft → Submitted → Under review → Resolved → Closed

Add to the running log as the picture develops. Review by a manager is tracked separately from the status: they read it, and either mark it reviewed or send it back to a named person for changes. Once resolved or closed, you can no longer add updates. See The incident lifecycle.

Linking logs

You can attach logs from the day to an incident, which puts the surrounding detail alongside the event itself. Linking and unlinking are both recorded.

This is worth doing. An incident with the day's logs attached tells a much fuller story six months later than one sitting on its own.