Utah
Free Sparkler app helps Utah parents track their young child’s developmental milestones
SARATOGA SPRINGS — It’s well known parenthood doesn’t come with an instruction manual — or at least it hasn’t, until now. The Help Me Grow Utah program sponsored by the United Way of Utah County introduced a new app to help parents along the way.
Sylvia Lam gave birth to her oldest child, 4-year-old Ashton Nguyen, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Ashton just finished his first year of preschool, so he’s all about numbers and counting. He loves math,” Lam said. “With Ashton being our first I had no idea what milestones were and where we should be.”
He’s progressing really well today but early on, Lam grew concerned when he wasn’t meeting some of his developmental milestones.
“We had some delays in speech … and a lot of significant delays in social skills and kind of being out and with other people so,” she described. “I was really, really concerned about milestones for him because he missed out on early experiences like his first year of life being out in society. He’s caught up now!”
Today, Sylvia uses the Sparkler app to track her kids’ milestones through regular surveys. The Help Me Grow Utah organization released the app earlier this year to replace online surveys they used to send out. “This app provides a faster and easier way for families to get those done all right through their phone,” director Tomas Caceres said.
The app is designed to track progress in communication skills, gross and fine motor skills, and both social and emotional behavior. He says tracking those skills helps parents identify room for improvement.
“Certain questions [like], ‘Can your child pick up a Cheerio?’ Caceres said. “You can go back to the app and say ‘Yes, my child does that’ or ‘Not yet, my child does not do that yet.’”
Sylvia Lam with her child. (KSL TV)
Once a parent completes the survey, they will receive a score for their child’s progress in each area.
“Parents aren’t left to interpret those results themselves. Our Parent Support Specialists will get on a phone call with them, go over those results, and have a conversation with them,” Caceres explained.
A parent support specialist reached out to Lam to offer support when they noticed a need for Ashton. “Having somebody kind of be your coach or cheerleader to say, ‘It’s okay. You can do it. Here’s some very concrete things that you can do. Here’s some examples. Don’t worry. We’ll check in in a couple weeks,’” Lam said.
Lam was so grateful to talk to someone over the phone. “I think if I just read those results, I would have just cried because as a parent, you really want the best for your kids, and when you feel like you’re not giving them the best, it’s really hard,” she said.
Instead, the parent support specialist offered productive strategies for Lam to help Ashton improve.
“Depending on where they scored we might just send some activities for you to try at home, we might send some videos for you to look over and practice with your child, but there are times where a referral is needed for more hands-on in-person support,” which would come from a third party, Caceres noted.
The parent support specialist told Lam to do everything she could to instill confidence in her son since that would, “trickle down into all of those other hard skills that [they] trying to work on like saying more words or completing a sentence or holding a pencil the right way,” she said. Lam really valued that advice.
The app offers more than 2,000 activity ideas for parents to help their child progress. “There’s a lot of fun ideas for play and ways you can just use ordinary items at home to kind of create different games or sensory bins,” Lam said.
“Learning where your child is at developmentally comes with engaging with your child and playing with them and getting down on your knees and actively playing with those toys,” Caceres said. “It promotes healthy relationships. It promotes trust in that parent.”
The app also allows parents to document their child’s progress through photos. “You can actually take a picture of your child completing that activity and you can create a scrapbook within the app,” he said. “It’s really awesome to go back and look at that growth with your child.”
After getting the help she needed with Ashton, Lam was excited to also track her two-year-old daughter, Eevee Nguyen’s growth. “I have a profile set up for each child and so I get pop-up notifications on my phone when it’s time to do a survey for Ev or time to do a survey for Ashton,” she explained. “It gives me good reminders if I’m like, ‘Oh, we’re not there yet. Oh, I should put some more time and more emphasis on activities that will help us learn those things.”
Lam is grateful for the reassurance the support has provided. “When we get those reports back and we’re doing really well in different areas, that makes me feel more confident as a parent and that we’re providing the experiences that our children need,” she said.
Caceres urges parents to start tracking their child’s milestones as soon as possible. “Studies shows that the most critical ages in a child’s life is zero to three,” he said. “Their brain is growing rapidly and there’s a lot going on. They’re taking in a lot from the environment… and so if we can catch those signs early the better off your child will be.”
The Sparkler app allows parents to track their kids’ milestones starting at just two months of age. It’s available for free in both English, Spanish, and Chinese on both the App Store and Google Play store for Utah residents with the code UT.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah football’s first official visit weekend of the 2027 recruiting cycle has already produced a payoff, as Morgan Scalley has landed the commitment of three-star offensive lineman Sire Stewart.
Stewart, a 6-foot-5, 255-pound offensive tackle out of Chandler High School in Arizona, became one of the key names to watch coming into the weekend.
Utah hosted several offensive line targets as part of its first official visit group, and Stewart leaving Salt Lake City committed gives the Utes a tangible recruiting win at a priority position.
A Fast Win For Utah’s New Recruiting Operation
Utah’s first official visit weekend under Scalley was always going to be about more than hosting prospects. It was the first major chance for the new regime to show recruits and families what the program looks like with Scalley as head coach and D’Orazio helping guide the roster-building operation.
Stewart’s commitment gives Utah an early return from that effort.
The Utes need momentum in the 2027 class, and official visit weekends are where that momentum often starts. Landing an offensive lineman from Arizona also reinforces one of Utah’s most important recruiting priorities: continuing to build regionally while identifying prospects who fit the program’s developmental model.
Stewart had official visits scheduled to Washington State and Boise State but elected to give his pledge to the Utes instead.
Utah Got In Early
Utah’s pursuit of Stewart did not begin this weekend. Offensive line coach Jordan Gross offered Stewart in early February, with the Utes becoming his 10th offer and third Power Four opportunity behind Duke and Arizona. Since then, Stewart has added offers from Oklahoma State, Baylor and Cal, while also making an unofficial visit to Arizona State.
Utah was not late to the evaluation. The Utes identified Stewart early, prioritized him and then got him on campus for the first official visit weekend of the cycle. In modern recruiting, that kind of early relationship-building is important.
Gross may be new to college coaching, but this is a good first recruiting win. He gives Utah a unique offensive line pitch. He played at Utah, became one of the program’s best examples of development translating to the NFL, and now gets to sell that same path to recruits. For a prospect like Stewart, Utah can offer both a developmental plan and a real example of what that plan can become.
Building The Class Up Front
Stewart’s commitment also continues a clear early theme for Utah. The Utes are prioritizing the trenches, particularly from the high school ranks.
Utah has long built its program around line-of-scrimmage play, and that identity is not expected to change under Scalley. If anything, it appears to be one of the first pieces of the roster construction plan being emphasized in the 2027 class.
Stewart gives Utah a developmental offensive line prospect with the frame to grow into a Big 12 lineman. Listed by 247Sports at 6-foot-5 and 255 pounds, he still has room to add strength and mass, but the foundation is there.
This commitment gives Utah momentum, but particularly with the offensive linemen they’re in pursuit of. Utah will continue to push for fellow offensive linemen Lincoln Mageo, Ian Aloisio, Tye Kennedy, Damian Anyasodo, Gecova Doyal, and Amaziah Siale.
Mageo and Doyal were also part of the visit with Stewart, giving Utah an added presence to recruit those two. Kennedy and Anyasodo will officially visit the Salt Lake City this weeend, while Siale has been a big priority for Utah and will visit at the end of the month.
The Bottom Line
Sire Stewart’s commitment is not just another name on Utah’s 2027 board. It is the first real proof point from the Utes’ opening official visit weekend under Scalley.
Utah identified him early, got him to campus and closed. That is what good recruiting operations are supposed to do.
For Stewart, the commitment gives him a clear developmental home in a program that has long valued offensive line play. For Utah, it adds another piece to a 2027 class that needs to reflect the new regime’s roster-building vision.
The Utes have always believed in winning up front. Stewart’s commitment shows that message is still central to how Utah plans to build.
Steve Bartle is the Utah insider for KSL Sports. He hosts The Utah Blockcast (SUBSCRIBE) and appears on KSL Sports Zone to break down the Utes. You can follow him on X for the latest Utah updates and game analysis.
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SALT LAKE CITY — Lucas Horns points over a fence on Main Street toward an empty lot with a blue shipping container on it, tucked between downtown Salt Lake City’s tallest buildings.
That container, he explains, will serve as a makeshift bar on Thursdays and Fridays through the remainder of summer, set up next to a live music stage and a space that will be dedicated to various lawn games for people of all ages. The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art will provide some art as part of an outdoor sculpture and food and drink venue combination aimed to liven up an otherwise dead space.
“Our hope is just to add to the ecosystem,” said Horns, program director for the Blocks, a joint venture between Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County to develop arts and culture programs within the downtown area.
The Blocks is launching what it calls the “Art Garten” in the lot of the old Utah Pantages Theater, 144 S. Main, beginning this week. It’s a free event that blends a beer garden with live music, art and games for all ages.
A DJ will be spinning hits from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday, while live music from the steps of the Eccles Theater across the street will fill the air during the same hours on Friday. A rotating list of DJs and live bands will fill in the space during the same hours twice a week for the next few months.
The event will include a rotating food truck lineup, along with cornhole, giant chess and other lawn games for people of all ages. The Blocks didn’t want to compete with bars and restaurants, so the hours hit around happy hour, while also being friendly for people with families, Horns said.
“We were interested in adding something new to downtown,” he told KSL. “There aren’t a lot of spaces where families can go, and the parents can grab a beer and hang out while their kids play lawn games. That’s kind of a rarity in Utah, and especially downtown, so I think we’re filling an important niche.”
At the same time, it livens up a piece of Main Street that’s been lifeless for years.
The Utah Pantages Theater was demolished in 2022, amid a last-second effort to preserve the century-old building. Salt Lake leaders approved a $0 sale of the building to international real estate firm Hines and local developer Joel LaSalle in 2019, setting the stage for a proposed 31-story residential high-rise on Main Street.
However, the project stalled with the market. “Unprecedented market changes,” such as record inflation, emerged at approximately the same time as the theater was demolished, making it difficult to secure financing for the project off the ground, a spokesperson for Hines told KSL in 2024.
The situation hasn’t changed much since then, leaving Main Street with a vacant lot blocked off by a large wooden board for years. Some of the lessons from “Open Streets” and other downtown activation events helped piece together an event to use the space while it remains vacant.
“We’re excited just to be able to do a pop-up park like that in that location on Main Street, with programming unlike anything else we’ve done on Main Street,” said Dee Brewer, director of the Salt Lake City Downtown Alliance. “I’m really excited to see how the public responds.”
Hines cleared the space for the event, which will continue on Thursdays and Fridays through the end of September. Horns and Brewer say they expect the venue to return next year and potentially longer, depending on how long the tower project remains on pause.
It may not be the perfect solution to a development holdup, but they believe it’s an upgrade from the current situation.
“A blank, empty wall is never good for walkability or for the urban environment,” Horns said.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
SALT LAKE CITY — A law designed to prevent so-called “dumpster babies” is now 25 years old — and one of the individuals it was designed to save is now close to the same age.
Utah‘s Newborn Safe Haven law was designed to give pregnant moms a safe alternative where they could leave a baby they could not or would not be able to care for. The original sponsors of the bill say they don’t know how many children have been saved over the years, but one of them, Sam Peterson, was on hand to mark Monday’s special anniversary.
He said the law means everything to him.
“It is something that has given me my life! It’s my privilege to be a part of this law,” Sam said.
He stood next to his mother, Heather Peterson, who said she gets emotional talking about the law allowing her and her husband to adopt Sam.
“We feel like a miracle happened. We feel like you came to us in the most amazing way and you have an amazing story and we think it’s important that other people hear it,” she said.
Heather and Sam agreed that the Newborn Safe Haven allowed them to become a family.
It was a bill originally sponsored by former Utah Senator Patrice Arent a quarter century ago. Arent said she felt compelled to act after hearing too many stories about so-called “dumpster babies.”
“Babies that had been left to die in unsafe places like dumpsters or public toilets,” Arent explained, “Or even someone who left their baby in a drawer in their bedroom in Cottonwood Heights. I heard these stories and I just knew I had to try to find a way to provide a safe alternative.”
So Arent, a Democrat, worked with former Republican lawmaker John Valentine to sponsor and help pass Utah’s Newborn Safe Haven law.
Arent said it was a true bipartisan collaboration.
“It allows our birth parents to legally give up custody of an infant. It’s anonymous and it’s in a hospital. There will be no questions asked, and the baby then ends up in a safe, loving home,” she said.
Less than a year after the law went into effect, Sam’s birth mother left him at a Utah hospital. Heather said she and her husband adopted him three days later. Sam is now 24.
“We are living proof that Safe Haven works, because we didn’t know anything about his birth mom… It was like he just dropped out of heaven,” Heather said.
Sam said he is eternally grateful.
“It’s given me a family, it’s given me friends, it’s given me an opportunity to go to college. Day three, I was with my mom, and so she will always be my mother, and I will always cherish that,” he said.
Sam said he will be graduating next year from BYU with an engineering degree.
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