It can also be extraordinarily rewarding - there are fantastic people working within our health and education sectors, but they are often bogged down, knee-deep in murky bureaucracy where accountability, clarity and common sense can be difficult to find.
When a school such as Hora Hora steps in to advocate for a child, after identifying the need for some specialist help, something needs to happen.
Four months with no action is unacceptable.
This child is 6 years old.
He is prone to violent behaviour.
Someone other than a teacher, a parent, a grandmother or father or school principal - needs to sit down with this child and work out why he is violent.
He is a child. He is unlikely to be railing against this country's political system.
In that regard, the child is lucky to have a principal well versed in such matters, who pressed the right buttons to get action for this student.
They say it takes a village to raise a child.
It would be churlish to say that the village that raises our special kids is populated by idiots.
But it does seem no one is home.
Out of everyone - the teachers, the child's family, the principals, fellow pupils - it is the 6-year-old who deserves better.
