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Tampa Academy Safety Failed Past Evaluations

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By ADAM EMERSON

aemerson@tampatrib.com

Published: December 30, 2008

Three years ago, the Department of Children & Families found many of the same problems at the Tampa Bay Academy that other state regulators found this month: inadequate staffing, abuse complaints and an alleged sexual assault.

Today, the state wants to shut down the academy's mental health center. In 2005, the academy faced similar threats as DCF officials prohibited it from admitting new patients, according to records obtained by The Tampa Tribune.

There wasn't enough staff to protect the patients, DCF officials said then.

A dearth of qualified employees made it easier for one male worker to creep into an area housing female patients without detection and sexually assault a young girl, DCF officials said.

Letters from DCF lawyers show the academy further angered state officials by waiting days to report the incident to law enforcement.

"It has reached the point that the department has lost confidence in Tampa Bay Academy's ability to protect the health and safety of the clients we entrust to your care," DCF officials wrote to corporate managers of the for-profit mental health center in 2005.

Within weeks, the academy's long-serving administrator resigned and its corporate parent hired the additional staff members the state demanded. DCF officials, satisfied with the results during subsequent inspections, let the company resume admitting patients.

But many of the problems one state agency unearthed three years ago are similar to those being investigated now by another.

Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration, which now regulates the Tampa Bay Academy, moved this month to suspend the mental health center's license. Agency officials noted that children and teenagers there lived in "substandard conditions," which investigators found after acting on an anonymous tip.

Allegations Have Similarities

The academy is appealing the order, but on Monday, the Second District Court of Appeal denied its emergency request to stop the state from seizing its license. Academy executives declined to comment on DCF's allegations from three years ago.

In its Dec. 11 order to shut down the academy, Health Care Administration officials wrote that managers at the mental health center "failed to take actions to protect its clients from known and obvious dangerous behaviors."

Inspectors had found evidence that residents sexually preyed on workers and on each other - all made easier by the failures of a poorly trained and equipped staff.

When asked whether the Health Care Administration knew of the issues DCF uncovered, spokeswoman Shelisha Durden said in an e-mail, "We would not have had any way of knowing about any problems before we took over the licensure of this facility." The administration took control of the academy's license in July 2006.

The administration recently ordered the removal of 54 children and teenagers from the academy's residential treatment program by Jan. 9 and, as DCF did three years ago, stopped the admission of new patients.

Regulators said the academy had its chances to correct problems. Letters and e-mail the Tribune received through the state's open records law show the Department of Children & Families told the academy as long ago as 2004 that it lacked enough staff.

Department chiefs also noted at the time that the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office received an "excessive" number of calls alleging abuse and neglect at the academy. They also said that many patients escaped from what was supposed to be close supervision.

In response, the academy's then-executive director, Ed Hoefle, said his staff investigated abuse claims and found no merit to them. He also said he added workers to his staff to keep patients from wandering off grounds.

By late 2005, though, state officials expressed frustration with the academy's foot-dragging toward long-term fixes.

Neither the academy's residential treatment center nor its group therapy homes maintained "acceptable staffing levels," DCF officials wrote. By Oct. 15, 2005, that lack of supervision led to an alleged sexual assault, officials said.

"Inadequate and inappropriate staffing ... permitted a young male employee to be alone in the presence of female clients," regulators wrote to executives of Youth and Family Centered Services Inc. in Austin, Texas, which owns the Tampa Bay Academy.

Past Supervisory Failures

Another child witnessed the worker molesting a girl, according to e-mail among DCF officials. Administrators at the academy, however, didn't call law enforcement immediately.

DCF officials wrote that one director at the academy chose, "in her own words, to 'wait until Monday' (two days later)" to report the incident. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office had no information Monday regarding its investigation of the case.

The department didn't suspend the academy's license, but kept it from admitting new residents, many of whom provide the for-profit academy with revenue from Medicaid reimbursements and insurance payments, among other sources.

Around the time DCF took action, the Tampa Bay Academy reported net revenue of $15.4 million, which exceeded its total spending of $14.3 million.

Hoefle eventually resigned and the academy overhauled the way it staffed its treatment center. DCF officials spent the fall and early winter conducting weekly inspections and were pleased with the changes managers made.

In January 2006, the department allowed the academy to resume admitting patients. By the following May, just before it transferred oversight to the Agency for Health Care Administration, DCF renewed the academy's license for one more year.

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285.

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