Willowbrook C Building (based on a true story)

Synopsis

An entitled teen’s bank account and car would be taken away by her father unless she enrolled in a two-year college. She entered the Child Care Program in Staten Island Community college with only one goal in mind – bank account and car. She chose Staten Island Community College to be with her two childhood friends. Unbeknownst to her, she was required to internship at the local schools. Due to her obnoxious personality, her Professor assigns her to Willowbrook State School. Appalled at the sight of the children littered in hallways in straitjackets and locked in cages, she demands her Professor switch her to a more suitable internship like a nursery school or kindergarten. She bribes the Professor by offering him a check from her father for the Psychology Department. It was a failed attempt and she had to return to Willowbrook. She was driven by her goal: her bank account and car would be returned upon finishing this semester. In Willowbrook she meets a quiet and reserved Nursing School graduate. Together they discover a five-year-old girl admitted to Willowbrook was misdiagnosed. The child crawled instead of walked, and according to the staff, she never spoke. After caring for this child, the student becomes determined to learn about her test scores. She convinces the nurse to join her in several schemes to find out the real reason this child was placed in Willowbrook. Together they steal the child’s file from the main office. They discover the child’s test scores were only below normal which does not warrant placement in Willowbrook. The intern accidentally hears the head of the institution, Dr. Hammond, change test scores to obtain money from the state. The intern meets a recent graduate who works at Willowbrook who tries to convince the head of the institution changes are needed here. His requests are always rejected. He feels the student is just the person who can be instrumental for this change. To further investigate this situation, the student impersonates a caseworker and visits the home of the child. Here she learns that the child’s behavior was due to the mother’s reinforcement -don’t speak and crawl like a dog. The nurse and the student visit the father at his office. They tell him their findings. The child’s father becomes enraged and begins divorce proceedings. This obnoxious student has an epiphany. Her goal was no longer to get back her bank account or car, it was to unite child and father. With the help of the college graduate, her two friends and the nurse, plan a variety of hair brain schemes including a plot to have the child removed without consent of the administrators. On that planned day, the student brings a doll the same size of the child for an exchange-the doll for the child. She knocks at the back door of C Building. The nurse and the student make the exchange. The student hears commotion in the parking lot the exact same time the child’s father was to meet them.

A well-known journalist, with his camera crew, burst into Willowbrook exposing the atrocities.

With the excitement and scattering of personnel, the student was able to sneak the child into the parking lot and return her to her father. Dr. Hammond becomes enraged because an intern has caused his life’s work to crumble. Outside the building during the midst of all this commotion, he takes the graduate hostage and holds a gun to his head. Listening to the screams of the parents, the children and the workers, Dr. Hammond pulls the gun on himself, and he crumbles to the ground. The student rushes to the graduate’s aide. A romance begins between the student and the graduate.

One month later

The student visits the father, now a single Dad. She and her friends park the car on the street. They look below where bikes ride, kids play, and people jog along the waterside. The student waves. From a distance, we see the nurse helping the child alongside the father. The nurse has a new job; the father has his child back; and the student completes her internship at Willowbrook.