As background, until recently my children have been in a kinship care placement with my estranged birth family. The story is long and complex and I will save you the details, but the current situation is that my elder children are now back in our care, and my daughter (9) is in temp foster care with a view to returning to us.
Six months ago, when substantive contact was restarted, one of the kinship carers made an allegation of sexual assault of my daughter by her father. The allegation was dismissed by social services (such an occurrence was impossible for practical reasons, they were always in public spaces when they saw each other). My daughter was never told of the allegation.
Ever since the allegation was made, I have had a low buzzing anxiety that actually it was true, but misdirected. The husband of the person who made the allegation sexually assaulted me on three occasions when I was a teenager. The person who made the allegations is aware of this, social services is not.
Four months ago, all three children disclosed serious physical abuse in the kinship placement, there is now a live court case. At the time I shared with social services that I was concerned that the sexual assault allegation was true but misdirected, but did not disclose my own experiences. They reassured me that they were certain that it was just a malicious allegation.
On a number of occasions, with me, with her father and with two separate social workers, my daughter has indicated that she has something to say, but is unable to get the words out.
For several weeks now, my daughter has been demanding access to the reports that have been written about her and is furious that she has been denied access to them. I have spoken to social work about this on several occasions, who eventually agreed that she should see them, but have dragged their heels in meeting this need.
Yesterday at contact, she was very insistent that she should see the report. I fully accept that this was not the best manner to share them with her, but I took a parental decision that the upset that she had about not seeing them was causing her more harm than having access to them.
She read the sexual assault allegation and asked me to explain it to her. I told her that was worried because she had seen bruises and that she had an infection and she thought that someone might have touched her private parts. DD flew into a fury about why she had not been told about this, accused me of hiding things from her, then for half an hour hid under the duvet, emerging every so often starting at me and starting to speak then hiding back under the duvet.
The taxi came to take her back to the foster carers and she refused to go. I told her I could get someone out to see her at school tomorrow, but she still would not go. I then said that I would come back with her, and followed behind her in a taxi turning up at the foster carers unannounced (I know this was an imposition, but I was very worried).
The FC was very understanding, and gave us a room to talk in. We talked for an hour and she made no disclosures. I am more reassured, but not completely.
This morning I got a call from social services. They are very unhappy with me turning up to the FCs (I understand this, it was an imposition and not something I would have done except in exceptional circumstances) and that I shared the report with her, particularly the assault allegation.
I believe I was right to share the report with her, although I agree that it was not the best circumstances to do. She has a need to know and social services while acknowledging this need, are not addressing it. They are insisting that contact must be "fun time" and that I should deflect any questions she has and concentrate on building the relationship. They tell me that she only gets upset about the situation around me, and that she is happy-go-lucky while staying at the foster carers, around her dad and the previous kinship carers (who she still has contact with, except the person who perpetrated the physical assaults).
I would love to be having "fun-time", but I am not prepared to use my parental authority to shut down her feelings and emotions. And I think the only reason the anger is coming out with me, is that she feels safe to be angry around me and trusts me enough to let her emotions show.
Did I do wrong? Social services think I did, but I still think my decision to show her the reports in the absence of an alternative was correct (if suboptimal).