TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Troubled academy aims to expand

ADVERTISEMENT

By ADAM EMERSON

aemerson@tampatrib.com

Published: June 21, 2009

TAMPA - The executive director of the Tampa Bay Academy says he plans to ask the state this week to lift its moratorium on admissions, saying he has turned around the troubled mental health center and is prepared to bring it back to capacity.

Six months ago, Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration was preparing to pull the academy's license after finding "substandard" conditions and "gross mismanagement."

The academy was given another chance, however, and its top administrator says he feels "very positive about the changes" he has made.

An anonymous tip late last year unearthed evidence that residents in the treatment program preyed on workers and on each other - all made easier by the failures of a poorly trained and inadequate staff.

The state removed 54 children from the academy's treatment center but later agreed to settle. As long as the for-profit academy met every standard set by regulators, it could keep its license and enroll up to 20 children.

Now its director says he will ask to enroll more.

"We've done a lot of intensive training with our staff," said director Rich Warden, who took over the job one month before regulators threatened to suspend the academy's license. "And we've been more conservative with the type of kids we're taking, making sure we can provide quality and good care."

There are 18 children enrolled in the residential treatment center. The academy took care not to take in residents with a history of criminal behavior, Warden said.

Warden also brought back and retrained just 20 percent of the 140 workers he laid off in December. Some of the others let go contributed to the problems that regulators found, he has said.

If the state lifts the moratorium on admissions, Warden said he will plan to enroll up to 80 children.

Before that can happen, though, regulators will have to visit the academy to make sure everything is all right.

Inspectors visited earlier this month to check out a complaint, but they found no deficiencies, said Shelisha Durden, a spokeswoman for the Health Care Administration.

In its settlement agreement, the Health Care Administration noted the academy had taken some measures to improve the quality of its care before it was sanctioned.

But it's not the first time a state agency gave the academy another chance.

In 2005, the Department of Children & Families stopped Tampa Bay Academy from admitting new patients for three months after finding many of the same problems the Health Care Administration later found.

Satisfied with the results of subsequent inspections, DCF later allowed the academy to resume admissions.

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

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT