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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder why they want me to fill out the form so F*****g badly?!

29 replies

OTTMummA · 07/02/2012 17:01

Had 16week apt with midwife today at childcare centre, is a new system so haven't been before.
I got there and some general assistant came through, not a hcp bwt.
She took me through to a seated area and told me to fill out a form, on it she said i had to put all my info on it, my dh and my ds's info aswell, i asked her do i need to and she told me yes you have to.
I then looked through the form and decided i didn't want to give all my info to them, whomever they are, she came back through 5 mins later and asked me why i hadn't filled it out?
I just told her i didn't see the point and just wanted to have my midwife apt and leave.
She then got shirty and said, so you are refusing to fill this out, why?
Does your son go to nursery? is he socialised! wtf!
AIBU to think it's my own business why i don't want to share my family information, and that i shouldn't be told i have to when actually when i asked to midwife later she said no it is just a form to keep you updated with group sessions, but they are drop ins anyway, you don't need to register with the centre to attend.
I just found this woman to be out of order, i am perfectly capable of deciding wether i want to fill out a form or not, and it isn't her business anyway!

OP posts:
MateyMooo · 07/02/2012 17:03

maybe she was having a bad say, or was a trainee... who hadn't been trained properly..

dont give out your info if you dont want to!

JanecobMarely · 07/02/2012 17:05

Was it a SureStart Centre by any chance?

I think they are so squeezed for funding that they have to justify every penny they spend and the only way they can do this is by showing real names and real people they have coming through the doors.
Also, if your DS was on the premises, they would perhaps need some information to cover them for insurance?

It probably felt intrusive as you weren't expecting it, but i'm fairly sure they didn't mean any harm.

Smile
Birdsgottafly · 07/02/2012 17:05

The more people registered at the Children's Centre, the more its survival is going to be guaranteed. Services and courses can be targeted.

Dickensia · 07/02/2012 17:07

From the sound of it, you are NBU at all. Give out as little information as possilbe to anyone who ever asks you anything personal.

What got my goat are cold callers who used to ask me if I had gas central heating (and other details). I told them it was none of their business. I felt a bit sorry afterwards because they were probably youngsters perhaps in their first jobs.

My neighbours and I had cold callers some years ago wanting to know if we had burglar alarms. Well, what a stupid survey. An invitation to burglars if they knew whether or not we had an alarm! I rang the police and they came out to tell them they were being unwise chase them away.

LaurieFairyCake · 07/02/2012 17:07

yanbu

I can't be arsed with officious types and wouldn't have filled it out. I had a receptionist give me a form at my doctors surgery with very personal questions on it as 'they wanted to update their records'.

One of them was "Do you have anal sex, how often, do you use condoms, how many sexual partners have you had" etc.

I handed it back and said that I wasn't going to fill it in and questioned why she was handing them out.

She said the doctors daughter was using them for her masters and needed a randomised sample.

Being a lecturer I complained long and loudly to the receptionist about confidentiality, privacy, the fact she had given them out without explaining that they were for research and that because of it the research was tainted. I even highlighted it with the woman's university as she was not meeting ethical guidelines.

ISayHolmes · 07/02/2012 17:07

Maybe her boss will have a go at her if someone hasn't filled out the form and she wants to avoid being told off? Just a shot in the dark here.

TheParanoidAndroid · 07/02/2012 17:07

you could have politely asked what it was for rather than just refusing and getting shirty about it.

ISayHolmes · 07/02/2012 17:08

I agree that it's totally up to you btw, just thought that might be why she got huffy about it.

Birdsgottafly · 07/02/2012 17:10

The ideal would be for all that use the Centre to be registered somewhere, then if they are short of numbers or a course isn't available at one centre that is at another, people can be signposted.

Some people rely on the services of the Centre's for company and to get them out of the house. It is nice if there is co-ordination in the community.

Most of the children going to stay and play etc go onto school together.

eurochick · 07/02/2012 17:13

Laurie that is shocking! You were absolutely right to complain!

thepeoplesprincess · 07/02/2012 17:15

It's pretty obvious why they want you to fill out the form, but if you don't want to, then you don't; want to. TBF they are horribly snotty and judgemental.

Birdsgottafly · 07/02/2012 17:15

"whomever they are"

They come under the umbrella for Children and Family services. They do have to justify funding and running creches that go wih any courses.

You didn't have to filll everything out on the form. What appears to be 'just a general assisstant' is an active a team member as any other staff member and will take part in the team meetings when trying to plan how to tap into funding/make suggestionsand build relationships with parents (although she seems to have got off on a wrong foot).

Original poster
OTTMummA · 07/02/2012 17:18

I was quite polite, smiling etc, i wasn't hostile, until she stated i was refusing to fill out the form.
I did ask her what they were for, she said 'for updates about what is going on here'!? Hmm
I said i will look at them, which i did, and decided i wasn't going to come to this centre for groups apart from midwife appts so there was no point of giving out personal info.
It wasn't a sure start place, it's a child centre, social services use it aswell for youth groups etc, i had a look around, so i wasn't being nasty.
My gp surgery has changed how the midwife team work, they no longer operate from the surgery, but here now in a small room on the side.
Midwife was fine, and really thats all i was there for.

Oh and DS wasn't with me, after her little fit, i handed back her pen and said, yes ds is at nursery i work FT he is socialised and i am married, anything else?!
I also didn't fill out my dhs info apart from name and contact number on the booking in appt, his info was irrelevant in my case, but midwife didn't question that at all, was fine with it.

OP posts:
Original poster
OTTMummA · 07/02/2012 17:22

Why did she lie though?
She told me that i had to fill it out.
Midwife told me no, i didn't.

And i take back the'just' an assistant, i didn't mean for that to come across as it did, im sure she does a lot of good work etc, i just meant that i wasn't there for the centre, i was just there for the midwife, which is a seperate service, so really i didn't need to have anything to do with the centre staff IYKWIM.

OP posts:
littleducks · 07/02/2012 17:25

I think it is wrong, they are asking you to provide your dh's details without his consent, in fact they wanted your's without informed consent. I would be prepared to provide a mw with all my details for medical reasons, including my dh's details as next of kin, his family health history etc. but wouldn't want to register with a children's centre I had no intention of using. I have registered with centre I have used.

JanecobMarely · 07/02/2012 17:39

perhaps it was a generic form that they used for everyone, sometimes whole families use them, don't they?

i think you're reading a lot into something that sounds to me, quite innocent.
have you thought that the person with the form was a volunteer, and was nervous?

Original poster
OTTMummA · 07/02/2012 17:49

she was quite bossy actually Grin an older woman, not that means she couldn't of been new, but i got the impression she wasn't.

I don't find lying to someone innocent do you?
She specificly asked if i had other children, and for me to fill out my, my partners and my 1st childs information.

If she had started a conversation about wether or not i would consider using the centre now or in the near future, told me about the services they provided etc, then i might have filled out my information if i considered i might use the centre in the future, but it is way out of my way, didn't even know where it was.
She was funny with me after i wouldn't be using the centre, and wouldn't be filling out the info, which is imo rude and unprofessional.
I find it weird that we are just expected to give out personal information and then if we decided not to, or that it isn't in our best interests we get a snotty attitude thrown at us.
It is MY information to do with what i please!

OP posts:
creighton · 08/02/2012 09:17

no information is gathered 'innocently'. all of it is gathered with marketing/funding purposes in mind. it is also sold on to private companies. you should not give your information to anyone who asks for it without a good reason. if someone wants information they should be trained to be honest about what they are doing and not use the fact that they are in an 'official' building to sneakily gather data.

lesley33 · 08/02/2012 09:20

YANBU. But the centre's funding depends partly on the number of parents registered i.e. completing this form. There can be a lot of pressure on staff to get these forms completed.

Certainly up to 2 years ago - I doubt this has changed - centres had targets about the % of parents in the area who registered.

helpyourself · 08/02/2012 09:28

Shock at Laurie's tale. Was there any resolution? That is so wrong in so many ways.

Bossybritches22 · 08/02/2012 09:34

Quite right- I HATE these generic forms & never fill one out if I don't know what it's for.

If they need to know for research/funding/tick the right box purposes then fine tell me & I'll help, otherwise mind your own!

As if the staff at these centres haven't got enough to do without making them shuffle more paper!

Bramshott · 08/02/2012 09:42

Children's centres love forms - we had to fill one in when they came out to DD2's nursery to do an activity there. The more "service users" they have registered, the more they can justify their funding, and as you were in their building, they could argue that you are a service user I guess. Personally I would have just filled it in.

oldraver · 08/02/2012 17:39

I had a survey type form to fill in today at school one of the questions was do we come form a single parent household or a two parent household and I found it an intrusive question.

There may be a perfectly good reason for asking will ask tomorrow but at the time felt put out by it

amicissimma · 08/02/2012 17:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

kelly2000 · 08/02/2012 18:09

laurie,
What happened. I would have complained to the GMC, PCT etc as what the doctor was doing -using ther position to obtain private and sexual information under false pretences in order to pass it to a third party was illegal as wel as unethical. I also would have made a formal complaint about the girl obtaining information illegally for use in her masters, as she should have been removed from the course or at the very least made to restart her thesis. The paper she did could easily have ended up published perhaps with staff as other authors, and if what she had done had come to light the university as well as anyone else who had their name on thepaper would hav ebeen in trouble and had their career harmed too.

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