Well, what kind of fresh hell is this?
I had fun plans for the afternoon. A couple of posts lined up for Like A Starfish: a beginner's guide to my much-loved sling collection and some musings on the pitfalls of evolutionary psychology. Instead, I find myself writing a stark warning about Surestart Children's Centres.
We went to a paid session at a local Children's Centre this morning. I won't bore you with details of the activities here - although I might elsewhere because it's truly rantworthy - but suffice to say I did not appreciate the session leader explaining to me that my two-year old daughter was "just trying to decide about all of the lovely activities" which was why she was "seeming a teeny bit shy". No, child expert, she was holding onto my skirt for dear life because she is two and you were trying to hold her hand, take her from me and sit her at a table where she couldn't see me, to do something she's never done before, with something she doesn't like (glue).
And I don't need to be told that because I am her parent and I spend 24 hours a day with her!
Anyway, that and my intense irritation at the bizarre and arbitrary rules of structured play aside, I was asked to sign some parental consent forms. Everyone else filled them in and handed them back but I felt uncomfortable with the amount of information requested. Names, addresses, telephone numbers, mobile numbers, email addresses. Do I consider myself to be a lone parent? Am I expecting a baby? If so, when is it due? What is my employment status? What are my children's names? What gender are they? When were they born? What is their ethnicity? Etc, etc.
Now I am fully expecting a snippy email from Government Lover, telling me that I am angry, ranty and paranoid, yada yada, that all organisations need lots of information about the people they cater for in order to provide suitable services. But when I pay for Aqua Jungle Baby Signing Jamboree I don't expect to be asked how long I've been unemployed for, or whether I class myself as a traveller of Irish heritage, do I? No. So either this Children's Centre is contravening the Data Protection Act and collecting unnecessary personal information because of bumbling incompetence, or it intends to do something with it. To be perfectly honest, both of those secenarios are possible, but being the angry, ranty, paranoid person I am I suspected the latter and looked around for a bin. I'd paid for a bloody craft session, not careers advice or identity counselling.
And then I got to this little bit right at the bottom:
Yes, that's right. Not only will the County Council use your personal information to provide, administer and evaluate activities (well done, Government Lover) but it will also use it to offer support to you and yours "where it is required" - according to someone else's assessment, no doubt. Not only that, but it may be shared with other County Council professionals (I, at least, use the term loosely). And worst of all, the information "may also be shared with other agencies in government or providing services to children [because we all know how careful they are with data, and how they treat the children in their care] including Contactpoint, where there is a legal basis to do so."
I am assuming that my signing a consent form is exactly such a "legal basis", so it's a good job I remembered my resolutions and said no, thank you rather politely but very firmly to the woman whose opinion of me does not matter one jot, the woman who could not quite believe that a mother had refused to hand over "evidence" for The File. No, thank you, I do not want to sign this form, I said, as the room fell silent and my ears went a tiny bit red.
No, thank you, I do not want or need support.
I do not want my children's details being passed onto any of the incompetent people with whom I have had the misfortune to work.
I do not want other agencies in government meddling with the lives of my children and getting it wrong, again.
I do not give my consent for their details to be added to ContactPoint. In it I see only danger to children. No, thank you.
I said all of those things to her, and I hope that other people - including Government Lover - will say it, too. Because even if you do pay for what's on offer, they will still attempt to own your life and the lives of your children. If you don't pay for what's on offer but instead rely on it, then you are infinitely more vulnerable. But you can still say no, thank you - so don't ever forget it.
