This was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, losing to He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'. There will be spoilers ahead:
This documentary focuses on mental illness and behavioral disorders in children and four different and specific institutions. The documentary shows four institutions which handle different types of problems and have differing approaches to their patients.
The documentary starts with the "least" disturbing situations and facility, Eastern State School and Hospital in Pennsylvania. The children there deal with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression, among others. The only treatment seems to be medication and the staff seems to be called upon to be custodial carers as opposed to trying to find ways to bring about an improvement in their illness. Just keep the kids from hurting themselves and others, give them some small comfort but not much else. Three of the children are interviewed/profiled-Denise, Jerry and Brian. Jerry's story hurts me personally the most, as he has muscular dystrophy and undisclosed emotional problems and was abandoned by his parents at the facility. Brian's mother wants nothing to do with him, but his father is regularly around, takes him home every week and obviously loves his son. Denise is the saddest case, as she's given to cutting herself and has thoughts of suicide. That this segment about Eastern State is actually the most "hopeful" one of the four is depressing.
The next facility, Elan School, which specialized in "treating" children with drug, alcohol and behavioral problems whose parents can afford the tab, is more like a prison/reform school than a treatment facility. The methods used to "treat" their clients raise eyebrows, to say the least. As an aside, the facility was closed some years ago for various reasons.
The third facility, Sagamore Children's Center, is a New York state long-term care facility for autistic children. It isn't a treatment facility so much as it is a warehouse, even though there are attempts to teach the children there. A counselor there is interviewed and he tries to sound hopeful and as optimistic as he can, but when you first see a child at 12 and seven years later, at 19, there's little to no discernible progress, there isn't much which can be done.
The fourth and final institution is South Beach and it makes the other three look positively wonderful by comparison. The focus is on three of four patients who died under unexplained or questionable circumstances. Frankly, this last one disturbed and disgusted me so much that I can't really say any more here or I'll cry, scream and throw things remembering what I saw.
There's an epilogue detailing what happened to Denise, Jerry and Brian after filming, presumably up to the date of completion of the documentary. Given that they'd all be in their 40s or possibly even 50 now, I can't say if they're even still alive at this point, though I'd be curious to find out if they even remotely had halfway decent lives, though in at least one case, the chance of that is almost non-existent.
I saw this on Youtube and it's well worth watching. Most recommended.
This documentary focuses on mental illness and behavioral disorders in children and four different and specific institutions. The documentary shows four institutions which handle different types of problems and have differing approaches to their patients.
The documentary starts with the "least" disturbing situations and facility, Eastern State School and Hospital in Pennsylvania. The children there deal with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression, among others. The only treatment seems to be medication and the staff seems to be called upon to be custodial carers as opposed to trying to find ways to bring about an improvement in their illness. Just keep the kids from hurting themselves and others, give them some small comfort but not much else. Three of the children are interviewed/profiled-Denise, Jerry and Brian. Jerry's story hurts me personally the most, as he has muscular dystrophy and undisclosed emotional problems and was abandoned by his parents at the facility. Brian's mother wants nothing to do with him, but his father is regularly around, takes him home every week and obviously loves his son. Denise is the saddest case, as she's given to cutting herself and has thoughts of suicide. That this segment about Eastern State is actually the most "hopeful" one of the four is depressing.
The next facility, Elan School, which specialized in "treating" children with drug, alcohol and behavioral problems whose parents can afford the tab, is more like a prison/reform school than a treatment facility. The methods used to "treat" their clients raise eyebrows, to say the least. As an aside, the facility was closed some years ago for various reasons.
The third facility, Sagamore Children's Center, is a New York state long-term care facility for autistic children. It isn't a treatment facility so much as it is a warehouse, even though there are attempts to teach the children there. A counselor there is interviewed and he tries to sound hopeful and as optimistic as he can, but when you first see a child at 12 and seven years later, at 19, there's little to no discernible progress, there isn't much which can be done.
The fourth and final institution is South Beach and it makes the other three look positively wonderful by comparison. The focus is on three of four patients who died under unexplained or questionable circumstances. Frankly, this last one disturbed and disgusted me so much that I can't really say any more here or I'll cry, scream and throw things remembering what I saw.
There's an epilogue detailing what happened to Denise, Jerry and Brian after filming, presumably up to the date of completion of the documentary. Given that they'd all be in their 40s or possibly even 50 now, I can't say if they're even still alive at this point, though I'd be curious to find out if they even remotely had halfway decent lives, though in at least one case, the chance of that is almost non-existent.
I saw this on Youtube and it's well worth watching. Most recommended.