Tampa Bay Academy Inc.

A troubled youth mental health center in Riverview has laid off more than a third of its staff now that the state has removed many of the children in its care. Tampa Bay Academy let go 125 workers in its residential treatment center recently, even as it prepared a final effort to stop a state agency from seizing its license to provide around-the-clock mental health care to children. Recently, Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration reported that conditions at the for-profit academy's treatment center were "substandard." Inspectors 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. Employees got pink slips after most of the 54 children and teenagers previously enrolled at the treatment center were placed in other group homes or mental health centers, said the academy's executive director. Most of the laid-off workers were therapists, counselors and support staff needed to provide 24-hour care to children with severe mental health needs.