I suppose it is about staying healthy. I've been round this block before when I began work in 2001 and first learned that people weren't actually going to listen to 8 kids. I put my all into it, I backed there case with research and legislation and we won through some real changes. Then I paid for it, by 2003 I was emotionally exhausted, my work was always referenced always careful so it was me not what I produced athat all the flack got aimed at.
In November 2003 I was off work, exhausted, I really felt it was all my failure - totally burned out. Only I recovered, I got back on my feet and back to work. The debates have continued since then, I don't feel as low as I felt then, I've gotten at least a little more used to having my grammer publicly laughed at because the content isn't laughable - even if it is a single comma error!! (It still hurts though!).
But it isn't all about me - meeting people from other authorities that do my job, nearly all are in the same boat, some in the first flush of anger, some quitting, some disheartened and a few who've broken there way through into being allowed to work effectively. It isn't because of me.
I suppose what I'm asking myself is whether I've matured enough and toughened up enough to weather the storm. The stakes are raised on both sides, to exclude me and any evidence from the debate is a possiblity. This time though I'm not as excluded as I was socially at work - I don't mean I have many friends here but at least the awful gossip and character assacinations that existed 3 years ago have stopped. I think now when someone says I'm this or that, enough people have known me long enough to either not listen or argue back.
It's about debate, over years and months, to push changes so that people listen enough to be able to empathise with children taken from their family homes.