In this episode of Fostering Conversations, host Amy Smith welcomes Utah’s First Lady Abby Cox to announce the statewide launch of the Care Communities program. After a successful two-year pilot with Utah Foster Care, Care Communities are expanding across the state to provide essential support for foster families and children in care.
Abby shares how this initiative was born out of a desire to strengthen foster care in Utah and ensure that every child has a safe and supportive environment. The Care Communities model surrounds each foster family with 8–10 trained volunteers who provide emotional support, physical assistance, and trauma-informed care. This helps foster parents feel less isolated and ensures children in care have healthy, lasting connections with caring adults.
Key highlights from this episode:
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Statewide Care Communities launch – a first-of-its-kind effort in Utah.
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The top three benefits foster families experience: emotional support, physical help, and positive impact on children.
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How Care Communities prevent burnout and keep families fostering longer.
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Success stories from the pilot program, including mentorship moments, adoption celebrations, and lifelong community bonds.
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Practical ways listeners can get involved, even if they aren’t able to foster themselves.
Abby emphasizes that Care Communities not only support foster families but also give children the community connections they desperately need. This initiative is backed by faith organizations, nonprofits, local businesses, and state agencies—all working together to improve outcomes for Utah’s most vulnerable kids.
- Learn more or sign up at utahcarecommunities.org
- Explore Utah Foster Care programs at utahfostercare.org
Transcript
Fostering Conversations Podcast
Episode 64: Building Care Communities
Amy: Thanks for joining us for Fostering Conversations. I’m your host, Amy Smith, and today we have our amazing guest and First Lady Abby Cox. Thanks for joining us, Abby.
Abby: Thanks so much for having me.
Amy: So we are excited. Today is a special episode because, there is an exciting announcement that Abby is going to share with us.
So go ahead and share that with us and we’ll dive in.
Abby: we are super excited to announce that we are having a statewide launch of our Care Communities program. So we have been doing a two year pilot, around this Care Communities program. We’ve had. Great successes. We’ve had some incredible stories. we are thrilled with the outcomes, frankly, of what we’ve been seeing, and we are ready to launch statewide, which is very exciting.
Amy: It is so exciting and honestly for me as a former employee, this is flown by, so I can’t believe it’s already out of the two year pilot and ready to go, so that’s exciting. So would you just tell us a little bit about why you started the Care Communities program, why you joined up with Utah Foster Care to create this specific program?
Abby: Yeah, so when I got into this position,and wanted to see where in child welfare, really didn’t know that much about it, but knew that I wanted to, see if there was. Somewhere that I could have an impact or that my team could really maybe help in ways that, that some of the other organizations needed.
And so for us, it was, it really was a learning thing. and the more I got into it, and the more I started learning about it, the more, I learned great organizations like Utah Foster Care and others throughout the state that are doing the really tough work of, Helping to minimize the trauma that’s experienced when a child enters, the child welfare system and all the touchpoint that come.
I often hear as I go throughout this work is, the system’s broken. And I always say to people, no, the system is not broken. The system is complex. It’s very complex, and people are doing their best in most cases, to find ways to help, children who have been, hurt in some way and need our help and that are the most vulnerable in our state.
so on the out, I started to learn and meet people, families. Current and former children in care, just incredible people that are doing this work together. And I realized , there was maybe one place , that our team could really have an impact. And that is making sure that we have enough.
trained quality foster families that are diverse enough for the population of our kiddos and that we can have a safe place for these kids to land. and we see it across the nation. We are woefully short of foster families. and it’s because it’s hard work, as you know.
and it’s, beautiful work, but it’s also anything that is worth doing is also gonna be really hard. and so a lot of these families that, that, are in foster care or have a license, they usually give up their license within a year. Again, as we. what’s hard is that, if we don’t have a place for these kiddos who have been abused and neglected to have a safe place and a loving and place where they belong, and they can feel that, that sense of safety, then,we’re in trouble as a state.
We’re in trouble if we don’t take care of the most vulnerable among us. So I had heard about this idea of care communities. I’d seen it in different places in the country where they’re doing little pockets of this, mostly in christian congregations in the South, and I thought, is it possible that we could do this here in the state and do it statewide and have a real concerted effort to make this happen?
And through our partnership with Utah Foster Care, through amazing partnerships with interfaith, groups across the state, again, we’re where we are right now, and it’s an opportunity for us to surround these foster families and take care of their needs as they do the really important work.
Amy: One of my favorite parts about care communities is that not everyone can be a foster family. I personally was a foster family for four years, and then our family grew unexpectedly, permanently, and it was like, we can’t foster anymore, right? Because. We’re ca, we’re tapped out at this point. but Care Communities gives everyone an opportunity to give back and to help with this child welfare system.
So that’s one of my favorite parts about it, is that not everyone can foster. I totally get that. But there are ways that you can give back big or small, through this care community program.
Abby: That’s exactly right. And Amy, what, first of all, I wanna thank you for showing out. You’ve been so amazing. You’ve been outspoken and helping people to understand not only the really tough parts of being a foster family, but really the joyful parts. You and I have had conversations about, people.
Scared to,have teenagers in their home. they have a preconceived notion of what that looks like or what that means. And you’ve combated some of those fears , but also not sugarcoated things and you’ve been really real, which is what we need. We absolutely need that.
We need both. We need to understand that these issues are not just our, foster families, that are doing this work, but it’s all of us as a community that can come together and help out. So to me, the idea of a care community where, through a congregation or a business or a neighborhood, we can have eight to 10 families surrounding these foster families that help take care of their emotional, their physical, and any other needs that family has.
Especially making connections with those kids in care sometimes, it’s just as simple as a child needs a positive role model in their life. And for them, this just couldn’t be better, to make sure that they have just a whole network of people that are in their corner.
Wanting them to succeed, and they can feel that. To me, that’s the Utah way. that’s Utah in a nutshell. We want the help and that’s the other, you said, no, not every family gonna be foster.
Amy: Almost every family that I know of that I talk to says I wanna help in some way, and I wanna volunteer in a way that is impactful.
Abby: And so to me it’s like it’s a no-brainer that this is an incredible program that people in our state are hungry for. They wanna be helpful, and now we’re giving them the perfect way. To step in a meaningful way that is, that has all the protections that has the training. this isn’t just, grandma down the street telling you how to be a better parent.
It is. I’ve been trained on what these kids have gone through and the best ways to interact with them. And the best way is to keep them safe and make them feel like they belong.
Amy: Yeah. I love that this program provides , that safety net. Like you say, it’s not just, okay, let’s just rally around and hope this works out. It’s no, let’s be trauma informed. Let’s help these individuals support this child and foster family in the best way possible. one of my favorite.
a personal thing is that one of my teens, who we had in care and she aged out, she’s having a baby and it was so fun to throw a shower for her and to have her tell me who she wanted to invite. And it was so neat to see that she wanted to invite the adult women on our street. And even some of those women were like, wow, that was so thoughtful that you invited me thinking me, Amy invited them and I said, no.
She invited you, she gave me your name, and I just think that’s what a care community is, right? That was an unofficial one for us. but that’s what a care community is having. Strong, good adults that are there for your big moments to come to your baby shower and to be there. And the amount of things that she got from these women, just she wasn’t gonna be able to go get all of those things.
And so the tangible goods, but also just knowing, hey, there’s a group of women that’s gonna come to my baby shower. That is amazing.
Abby: Yeah. I just think that’s the beauty of this program. again, it’s gonna be a little more organized than your unofficial one. and it’s gonna help people to understand, like I said, like I didn’t know that much about foster care until a couple of friends of mine in my own congregation, began to be foster parents.
and to me it is it was eye-opening. there’s a lot of just don’t say that kind of things that we can learn.
Amy: Totally.
Abby: there’s some things that, you’ve endured some, and it’s a way for all of us. We all wanna be supportive. I think all of us don’t want to say anything terrible.
I think we all have good intentions and wanna be the best support, but also, you know what? the idea that these foster families can also have, the parents can have their emotional needs met. We had an experience in our, one of our pilots where, one of the foster moms just said, you know what I really need?
I need a walking buddy.
Amy: Yeah.
Abby: I need somebody just to go on a walk with me every day. And to me, like, how beautiful is that? it’s so great. And there, there’s a dozen of like a million other stories I could tell. we had a single mom who was fostering teenagers. And again, the challenges and the things that go on with teenagers that are, my own teenagers, it’s and they didn’t have that, the background of some intense trauma and, And honestly, like she had her care community come in and instead of just coming in and mowing the lawn, which is great, would’ve been awesome. She needed that lawn mode. They came in, a couple of the male members of this care community, they came in and taught the teenagers how to mow the law.
And again, that, that was a relationship that, that these, there was a teenage, one of the teenage boys that I had never had. A real positive interaction with a male adult.
Amy: Yeah.
Abby: and to have that sort of mentor and then to go out in the world and have this incredible network like you’re talking about,to say, maybe I can have a job opportunity with somebody in my care community.
Maybe i. To go visit ’em on a holiday or they get invited to my big events and my special moments. it’s just, there’s just to me, this is Utah,
this is us. Supporting each other and doing it in a way that is organized and keeping kids safe from more trauma, keeping them safe from, any kind of harm that would come to them through all the protections that we’re putting in place.
By doing it in a really organized and thoughtful and, with the support of our. Public entities, our DCFS, the H-H-S-D-H-H-S folks, our agencies, as well as the legislature. we got some funding for this from the legislature.
We’ve had amazing private donations and helping get this pilot off the ground. We’ve had incredible philanthropists that have been supportive of this. We’ve been, had people throughout the state that are excited. To see this be successful and especially our faith organizations, our first Presbyterian churches who’ve been a part of our pilot as well as the LDS church and businesses that have been a part of our pilot.
and to me it’s just everybody wants to be a part of the solution on this and I think this is a huge way to do that.
Amy: Yeah, I love that it literally can include everybody. That is amazing. Something that when I started foster care, it, this should be obvious, but it’s not, and it became very obvious to me once I became a foster parent. Kids come into your home a stranger because there is nobody that they know that is safe for them to be with and that Is horrifying to me, right? If my kids were to be removed from me, do you know how long my list is of people they could go to? and kids in foster care don’t have that list. They have no one that is safe enough for them to live with. And if that doesn’t tell you that they need a community, I don’t know what will, like these kids need healthy.
Community. And so I think this care community program, yes, it supports the foster families, but it’s also giving these kids a safe community. And that is worth a lot.
Abby: you’re exactly right. and Utah has been recognized, throughout the country the state that has the most social capital.
So if you think about this, that means that, yeah. I had the same conversation with my daughter. We were talking about this.
I said, can you imagine that you had literally nobody? I told her like, I mean, Spencer and I both come from huge families and huge, amazing support, supportive, wonderful families, and I told her, I said, there are hundreds.
Amy: Yeah.
Abby: People that if we weren’t able to take care of you, that would take you
today yet, like right now.
I told her, can you imagine that same scenario where these children that come into care have zero. There’s literally no one. they have to be, taken in by a stranger, which again, we’re so grateful for and grateful that we have those safe places. But Utah, again, we have that most of us, and we are the lowest in the nation for poverty.
so I feel like it’s such a doable. thing for us to tackle that, that we do have this, like every state we have our struggles with kids who have had to be removed for abuse and neglect, but. we can be that caring community for them. we are a state of people who want to give, who want to be a part of the solution.
and these kiddos that come into care become the most vulnerable people in our state. Period. These are kids that are the highest risk for incarceration at highest risk for, addiction, at highest risk for homelessness, at highest risk for, Suicide, suicide, you know,all the really terrible things.
They are like literally at the top of the list, on all those stats,for risk. and to me that it’s just unacceptable in Utah. I don’t think we would accept that. I don’t think anybody in the state is ready to accept the fact that, there are kids that, that don’t have a place to go and don’t have a loving connection and community that’s ready to.
To help them. So to me, this is just accessing what Utah already does well and making it, accessible for everyone. to be a part of a care community and foster parents that need that is just a great, little matchmaking of the people that wanna help and the people who need it.
Amy: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s talk a little bit about, statistical outcomes for kids in care, of what the Care Communities program is doing. Can you tell us a little bit about like how many kids have been affected so far?
I just think it’s really fascinating for people to actually have a tangible number and understand what this is actually looking like, not just, yeah, it’s helping people.
Abby: Yeah. So we talked about the pilot when you are asking people to help fund a program, to me it can’t just be, oh, we think it’s doing great. We think it’s helping. So I knew that in order for us to be successful in this pilot and as we scale it statewide, we had to make sure that we were tracking impact, that we were doing this right.
So we had an incredible, in kind donation as well as, our philanthropists donating the, impact study. So company. So it really is that we did this in a really strategic way. It wasn’t just a feel good way.
so to your point, we do have some great stats and some great impact report from Sorenson that shows that what, what’s been happening, and we use that as went along in the.
Make changes along the way. we made big changes, and that’s what a pilot does. Like you’re learning what’s working, you’re learning what’s what you need to change. You’re learning about who, who wants to be involved and how best for them to be involved and to. To be able to do this. so we measured everything and we measured,outcomes and we’re measuring like how this is working out.
And then we also have all the anecdotal data. We have the empirical data that is helping us to understand not only numbers and how the outcomes. Again, this is not gonna be a super longitudinal study because it’s been two years, so we’re not gonna be able to say that these kiddos, long term down the road.
But we do know some of that, those studies from other places where when they have the supports, when those outcomes are really, are, much, much better. But I will just as far as the actual pilot, we did a two year pilot. We had, We had 26 total care communities and 13 of those are still active.
And what happens is sometimes that we get that, that family, they get stabilized, they get the help they need in the moment they get, it’s. Six months, maybe six, eight months. And then the family’s like, yeah, we’re really cooking now. We’re doing really well. And of course that community is not like disappearing, but maybe the needs aren’t quite as intense and that care community can actually move on and maybe help, another family.
So that’s why that number and then we plan to do, We hope in the next year to add 60 new care communities, and by the end of the next three years, I hope the stated goal has always been it that every foster family that wants a care community will have one.
And I think we’re getting there.
We really are. So to add another 60 this next year, and again, just keep adding those care communities and, again, the outcomes that we have a great, impact study, like I said, that we can share, but we’re seeing just huge impacts on these families. one. Again, I always love the stories ’cause numbers are great, but, the actual impact comes in when you actually see what the impact is on the families and the kiddos.
One of my favorites is there was a, their care community that had been surrounding this family for a number of months. The placement turned into a permanency, which means that, they actually had the opportunity to adopt this child. And the family, the care community went to. adoption to the court for the adoption.
tears, all the things. And then it was just beautiful. And then as they left the courthouse, the one of the care community members said, got concerned and said, Does that mean we can’t be their care community anymore? And of course, of course those connections are there and of course they’re gonna stay forever for that child.
And again, in a time when we need to think about our neighbors, we need to look outside of ourselves. We need to love each other in a better way. We need to see people and show up for people. No matter who they are, and especially people that are struggling, this to me shows the beauty of humanity and what we could be as people if we really come together and focus on the good and helping others.
Amy: Yeah. Some of the things that I think are important for listeners to hear is, Tammy, who’s over the program at Utah Foster Care sent the three, most positive impacts on foster families, and it was emotional support. foster families felt that they were seen and less alone, but also they felt like care communities.
their specific teams were less judgmental than their personal family or friends. And I think that’s really important. Family and friends aren’t always trained and aren’t always. 100% informed of why the heck we’re doing this. So I think that, these care teams are educated and so I thought that was really neat just to have, just having that emotional support because there are days I was a foster family where you think, why in the world am I doing this?
This was the dumbest idea I ever had in my life. So having people say, no, this was a good idea. This moment’s really hard, but you can keep doing it, is very invaluable.
Abby: Yeah. And and you say you talked about the, that impact and really the impact on everyone. to one of the numbers that, and I’m not sure, I hate to quote numbers ’cause I think we’re always changing and I’m not sure exactly where we are right now, but the last I checked we were about 200.
50 people that had been trauma trained throughout the state, and I know it’s bigger than that right now. But what happens is, to your point, is that every one of those people in that care community and in that congregation who’ve been involved in that, or the business or neighborhood, they are being trauma trained.
They are knowing the best ways to support that family and support that child knowing, not how not to. Re-traumatize or even cause just, some uncomfortableness around, you know what to say. And then a lot of us are like, oh gosh, I know they’ve been through a lot. I don’t know what to say.
I don’t know how to interact. and this just really helps people to be trauma informed, to understand the impacts of trauma. And like I said, I always joke that, ’cause I guess I think. Most parents have had that experience where either a family member or somebody you know, or somebody you’re in congregation in your neighborhood, like tries to tell you what you’re doing wrong as a parent.
And first of all, it’s never great, so just like maybe don’t ever do that. But also there’s, sometimes people don’t realize the way children who have experienced trauma. Behave sometimes in certain ways. and so you know, that regular oh, just, buck up kid and do the kind of regular parenting that you did, years ago, and it maybe doesn’t work when a child has had, those kinds of experiences. And so we do have to parent in a different ways, foster parents,parenting in loving ways. and we do have to figure out as community members the best way to support and interact with those.
Amy: Yeah, absolutely. the two other things that were mentioned as the, in the top three most impactful things about the care communities were the physical support, which we talked about, right? Teaching these kids how to mow a lawn, going on a walk, like actually being there, showing up. and then the positive impacts of that.
The care community has on the children in care, which we also touched on a lot, creating this hopefully lifetime healthy community for kids that haven’t had that. So I think those are really important to remember. Just, these care communities are invaluable to not only the foster family, but also the child in care.
Abby: and the care community members, I’m telling
you like the stories we get from the care community members, they’re, they are having beautiful experiences in, in, anytime you are serving or giving or you’re actually end up, better off than you started. And so I think that’s a huge impact as well.
Amy: Yeah, I love that. so we al already have to wrap up, which it always goes by so fast because there’s always a million things that you can just keep sharing and talking about. And this is such, I feel such an impactful opportunity for the state of Utah to be involved. It is a tangible way to give back.
so maybe let’s just talk about, how do you, how do we get involved? What do we actually do to. Become a care community. Be part of a care community, and maybe just share one of your favorite things that you’ve heard that relates to care communities.
Abby: Yeah, the beautiful thing about this program is, again, not everybody can be a foster parent, although we do need those and this, there’s a secondary thing where people who are part of a care community all of a sudden either maybe they had a license and are ready to get back in and say okay, if I had a care community, like I could definitely do this.
So obviously that’s great. Or somebody’s learning about foster care for the first time and saying, you know what? I actually am at a point in my life where this could be something that. That I could consider. And so of course we want that outcome as well. We wanna keep our great families and we wanna add more to them so that helps as well.
Be watching for us. We’ll be in your congregation, in your neighborhood, in your region, but also you can go to Utah care communities.org. great information on that site to help you understand how to get involved, what it entails, how to get your own congregation to, to get involved, how to support foster families in your area.
So that’s a big way to get involved. And then there’s a million stories. one of the beautiful things about the pilot was that my former director of First Lady initiatives after she left me to go be home again with her kiddos.
She. She became, like totally unexpectedly, she became a foster parent and their family became foster family and they were fostering this beautiful little 3-year-old. And, so I asked her, of course, to be a part of the pilot, and she was a part of that pilot, and I can’t tell you, it was so valuable to, to get her feedback.
And she just kept telling me like over and over again, I don’t know how people do this without a care community. And so she just, she got help with. Helping with her own kids when she had to take kiddos to therapy. you see this, there’s just a court date that’s gonna be really hard and a lot of our folks just maybe I just need a diet co swig on my, when I get back from this really.
Sub court date or I just need to debrief and have somebody to talk to. And that’s what we’ve seen over and over again in these, in this pilot. And as we move forward with these care communities, we see just this overwhelming sense of I’m being supported. I can handle this now because I’ve, have this help.
And again, the care community members are just finding so much joy in, in serving and connecting and making a difference.
Amy: Yeah, I love that and I could not agree more. I thought there was a really good quote from a foster parent. it says, all of a sudden there was this group of people that just wanted to help.
I just knew in that moment I wasn’t alone. That’s what I needed. They’ve just been able to do so many things I wouldn’t be able to do myself. And just as a former foster parent, that really strikes a chord with me just because There are moments where you feel really alone and you feel really overwhelmed and to take care of your own children and the children that you have agreed to bring into your home and care for.
And so I just think that, this care community program really is invaluable and is such a beautiful opportunity to, to the members of our community to serve, but also for our foster families and the kids in care to receive such kind and loving support.
Abby: Yeah, I love it. I love it. if I could just wrap every foster family in my arms and say, you’re not alone. I think that’s what care communities is are doing, and every, not everybody’s gonna foster, but every. Child can have the beauty of a care community around them.
Amy: Yeah. thank you Abby, so much for your time today on the podcast and for all that you do for the state of Utah, and especially for the welfare system, the most vulnerable kids in our state, it really is making an impact and it’s changing the trajectory of children’s lives. So thank you so much for all that you do.
Abby: Thank you, Amy. It’s been fun to be with you.
Amy: Yes, you too. If you wanna learn more, you can go to Utah foster care.org and learn how you can get involved. Thanks for joining us.
