{"id":36505,"date":"2023-09-28T19:01:52","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T23:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=36505"},"modified":"2023-09-28T19:01:55","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T23:01:55","slug":"dcf-case-manager-arrested-for-lying-about-home-visits-with-foster-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/09\/28\/dcf-case-manager-arrested-for-lying-about-home-visits-with-foster-kids\/","title":{"rendered":"DCF Case manager arrested for lying about home visits with foster kids"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A former case manager working under the Florida Department of Children\u2019s and Families (DCF) was arrested after being accused of lying about visits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Special agents with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Kristen Lucas Martinez, 43, falsified records regarding home visits with foster kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FDLE\u2019s investigative summary found Martinez lied about the visits in three different cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Martinez was a case manager at Lutheran Services Florida, a subcontractor that cares for foster kids for DCF.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Elevate-NewsletterImages-April06_LutheranServicesFlorida.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-36506\" style=\"width:243px;height:183px\" width=\"243\" height=\"183\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Terri Durdaller, the LSF spokeswoman, sent this statement to the media: \u201cWe discovered Ms. Lucas Martinez had falsified records during a routine quality assurance review. Our credibility is paramount in accessing and documenting a family\u2019s circumstance, particularly around child safety. At LSF we have zero tolerance for falsification. There is no place for this behavior in our line of our work to protect and strengthen families. Once we learned about this incident, we reported it to the proper authorities and terminated Ms. Lucas Martinez\u2019s employment at LSF.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We reached out to Family Support Services, the lead child welfare agency in Pinellas County, which oversees Lutheran Services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">CEO Jenn Petion said Martinez has not worked in their system since Sept. 17, 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIn cases such as these, immediate action is taken to review any specific allegations of falsification as well as to review all cases that an individual was assigned to. Both FSS and our partners have zero tolerance for falsification and hold our teams to the highest standards of integrity in our mission of ensuring child safety,\u201d Petion said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A former case manager working under the Florida Department of Children\u2019s and Families (DCF) was arrested after being accused of lying about visits. Special agents with the Florida Department of&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}