Podcast: Fostering Conversations Host: Amy Smith Guest: Dave, Owner of Dave’s Auto

Episode Summary

In this heartfelt episode, Amy sits down with Dave Bell from Dave’s Auto Center to discuss his incredible journey of giving back to the community through Utah Foster Care and other charitable initiatives. Dave shares the deeply personal story of his mother’s childhood in an orphanage, how that shaped his values, and why supporting foster families and children is so meaningful to him. From partnering with Mountain America Credit Union to organizing a massive community Christmas event, Dave’s passion for service shines through every story.

Key Topics Covered

• Dave’s Background: From starting his auto shop in a storage unit to building a successful business over 36 years.
• Personal Connection: How his mother’s experience as an orphan inspired his commitment to foster care.
• The Power of Service: Why giving back changes lives—both for those who receive and those who give.
• Community Christmas Event: Details about the annual Family Community Christmas in Farmington, serving thousands of families with food, clothing, toys, and holiday cheer.
• Encouragement for Listeners: Practical ways to get involved and make a lasting impact during the holiday season.

Memorable Quotes

• “Service is a dividend that pays double.” – Dave
• “Be careful what you fill your mind with—your life depends on it.” – Dave
• “One caring adult can make all the difference.” – Amy

Resources & Links

• Utah Foster Care: utahfostercare.org
• Family Community Christmas (Farmington, UT): December 20th at Farmington Fair Park
• Mountain America Credit Union: macu.com

Call to Action

Want to make this holiday season meaningful? Join the Family Community Christmas event or support foster families in your area. Your time and kindness can change lives.

Transcript:

Amy: Welcome to Fostering Conversations.

I’m your host, Amy Smith. Today we have Dave with Dave’s Auto,

Thank you so much for joining our podcast today. We’re excited to chat with you.

Dave: I’m happy to be here. Thank you.

Amy: So let’s start off by just introducing yourself, you know, what’s a little bit of your background and how did you get involved with Utah Foster Care?

Dave: my background is, I’ve been a mechanic my whole life since I was 15. So that’s 50 years now. And I started the business here in Utah in 1990. So we’re starting our 36th year this year. And started in a storage unit in the dead of winter with no heat. And Lord, I’ve been very blessed.

So that’s a little bit about me and where I came from and why I’ve gotta shop. Mountain American Credit Union came to me last year, a little before Christmas, and asked me to collaborate with them with Utah Foster Care. And I was so honored to do it, and they didn’t even know it.

They just came to me because they wanted a a working kind of guy to be part of their ad campaign and everything. And then through, meeting the people and you know, talking to Utah foster care and everything a story came up and that story is probably why this is so near and dear to me, but no one knew that.

But it’s unusual how people will get put in your life or you’ll get put in people’s lives and then it’s an answer to somebody’s prayer. You know, for me it’s an answer to my prayer ’cause I can give back. I’ve been so blessed in my life. And I hope that in some way t...

In this episode of Fostering Conversations, host Amy Smith talks with Utah Foster Care clinical support specialist and LCSW Les Harris about blocked care: why it happens, how it impacts foster parents, and practical steps to restore connection. Les explains how chronic stress can suppress the parenting response system, making it difficult to feel joy or affection toward a child, even when we deeply care. They discuss what blocked care looks like, why it’s different from burnout, how small “doses” of positive interaction can rebuild connection, and why acceptance, playfulness, curiosity, and empathy are powerful tools for healing relationships.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Brain-Based Parenting by Daniel Hughes & Jonathan Baylin

• What Happened to You? by Dr. Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey

• Utah Foster Care Clinical Support Services

Amy: On today’s episode, we’re talking to Les Harris, a Utah foster care clinical support specialist, and LCSW about blocked care and how it affects foster parents. Welcome to Fostering Conversations. I’m your host, Amy Smith. Today we have Les Harris who works for Utah Foster Care as the clinical support specialist, and also is an LCSW. Welcome Les.

Les: Thank you. Happy to be here.

Amy: Today we’re excited to be talking about blocked care. Blocked care really affects foster parents, but it affects all parents. So will you give us the dumb down version of what blocked care is?

Les: It’s one of those terms that’s relatively recent in the trauma informed literature, even though we know it’s been around forever. So it’s often used in, as you said, in foster care, adoptive care and in parenting in general. It’s a, it’s refers to the chronic stress that often comes with working with children with difficult emotions and behaviors, and forces the parent then to shut down emotionally and almost stop caring about the child.

It’s and in other words, they no longer find joy in parenting,

and that’s one of the most common outcomes where. Foster and adoptive parents, when they get pushed emotionally, their own parenting response system starts to shut down, and the next thing they know, they don’t even want to be around the child

anymore. And so that’s the basic definition but there’s so much more to it in the context of why does that happen? What do I do about it when it happens? And so on and so forth. So we’ll probably get into to more of that as we go.

Amy: Yeah, I know that when I started fostering, I had never heard that term. It was very interesting to me to learn about it from you and from different classes and things that I went to as a foster parent to, to understand that. So maybe we can just start, by talking about what are some of the reasons why a parent might be facing blocked care?

Les: Yes. I think that’s important because once we have a bit of awareness about the underlying causes and why it’s happening, then it gives me at least some information I could use to, to change some things about my approach to parenting, some of the most difficult children that will ever encounter. So, Let me go back.

I’m gonna get back to basics. Talk a little bit about. The idea that all humans, are born with an instinct, as we get older, particularly, and you can even see this in young children, but particularly as we start to get a certain age, we start to, that nurtur...

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:

• Statewide Care Communities launch – a first-of-its-kind effort in Utah.

• The top three benefits foster families experience: emotional support, physical help, and positive impact on children.

• How Care Communities prevent burnout and keep families fostering longer.

• Success stories from the pilot program, including mentorship moments, adoption celebrations, and lifelong community bonds.

• 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...