Dream Small Podcast

The Freedom To Parent Your Family Differently What happens when the best decision for your family doesn't make sense to everyone else? In this episode, we share the story behind a vacation decision that surprised some people: taking only our three oldest children on a family trip while our younger children stayed home. What started as a practical choice became a powerful reminder that parents have...

Just when you've finally built trust with a case worker, therapist, or visit supervisor...they're gone. If you've been in foster care for any length of time, you know the feeling. You're explaining the history all over again, rebuilding relationships, and wondering if anyone else remembers what your child has already been through. In this episode, we share some very real frustrations from our own...

Summer is supposed to be the season of slowing down, making memories, and enjoying extra time together as a family. But for many foster, adoptive, and biological families, summer can quickly feel overwhelming. The routines disappear. The schedules change. The snacks never end. The laundry piles up. The house is never quite clean. And somehow everyone is hungry again twenty minutes after they just...

What Happened After We Said Yes To Foster Care Eight years ago, we said yes to foster care. At the time, we had no idea how much that simple decision would change our lives. We couldn't have imagined the children who would come through our home, the adoptions that would follow, the reunifications we would celebrate, or the lessons God would teach us along the way. For our 50th episode, we're takin...

What happens to children in the hours after they enter foster care? Most people never think about it. They picture courtrooms, foster homes, case workers, and placements. But before any of that happens, many children spend hours and sometimes even nights sitting in government offices, conference rooms, and cubicles waiting to learn where they will sleep, whether they will stay with siblings, and w...

May is Foster Care Awareness Month, and in this episode we wanted to do something different. Instead of only sharing our own thoughts, we asked foster parents what they wish everyone else understood about foster care. Their responses were honest, vulnerable, challenging, and deeply insightful. We talked about comments foster families hear all the time: “I could never do foster care because I’d get...

What is it really like to be a foster care case worker? In this powerful and emotional conversation, we sit down with former Indiana DCS case worker, foster/adoptive mom, and child advocate Moriah Coons to talk about the side of foster care most people never see. From overwhelming caseloads and dangerous home visits to heartbreaking court decisions and emotional burnout, Moriah gives an honest loo...

Foster care was never meant to be done alone. In this episode, we kick off Foster Care Awareness Month with a conversation that is both deeply personal and incredibly practical. After years of fostering, one thing has become clear to us: the families who last are not the strongest or the most prepared. They are the ones who are supported. There are roughly 200,000 licensed foster homes in the Unit...

The Real Life of Foster Care: What People Don’t See May is Foster Care Awareness Month, and while a lot of people are familiar with the idea of foster care, far fewer understand what it actually looks like inside a home that is living it every single day. In this episode, we wanted to slow things down and offer a more honest picture of that reality, not to overwhelm you, but to help you see what i...

Life Update / Conversation Setup This week, we sit down with Josh Cortez, pastor at Westfield Friends Church and foster dad of nearly eight years. He and his wife have had over 10 kids in their home, and their story is unique because almost every placement has ended in reunification. That perspective shapes everything about how they approach foster care. Big Topic: Reunification and Loving Bio Par...

Disrupting a foster placement is one of the hardest and most painful parts of foster care, and it is something people rarely talk about honestly. In this episode, Jason and Whitney open up about the heartbreaking reality of disrupting placements. They share what it means when a foster family reaches the point of saying a child can no longer stay in their home, why that decision is almost never qui...

In this episode, Jason and Whitney talk about their unexpected journey into medically fragile foster care and how quickly their lives changed when they said yes to what they thought would be a short, simple placement. They share what medically fragile foster care actually looks like day to day, the fear and learning curve that comes with medical needs, the hospital visits, appointments, and emotio...

If your church, conference, or organization would like Jason and Whitney to speak about foster care, adoption, or living a meaningful life through small acts of faithfulness, you can contact them at dreamsmallpodcast@gmail.com. In this episode of the Dream Small Podcast, Jason and Whitney talk about how easy it is for foster care to harden your heart and why followers of Jesus must fight to stay s...

If your church, conference, or organization would like Jason and Whitney to speak about foster care, adoption, or living a meaningful life through small acts of faithfulness, you can contact them at dreamsmallpodcast@gmail.com. In this solo episode of the Dream Small Podcast, Jason shares reflections from attending the Every Child Symposium in Central Indiana, a conference designed to encourage fo...

Foster care is built around one painful reality that many people don't talk about: goodbye is the goal . In this episode of the Dream Small Podcast, Jason and Whitney open up about the different kinds of goodbyes foster parents experience. Some are joyful. Some are heartbreaking. Some come without warning. From reunification with biological parents to unexpected court decisions, to realizing a chi...

Episode Summary Marriage is hard. Add kids. Add trauma. Add foster care. Add special needs. Now multiply the stress. In this episode of the Dream Small Podcast, Jason and Whitney talk honestly about what it takes to protect and strengthen your marriage while fostering and parenting children with trauma, disabilities, and high needs. With divorce rates hovering around 50 percent and dramatically hi...

Adoption day is often imagined as a magical finish line. A perfect moment where everything suddenly changes. But the reality is both simpler and deeper than that. In this deeply personal episode of the Dream Small Podcast, Jason and Whitney share the real story behind the day their daughter’s adoption became official. Just four hours after leaving the courthouse, they sit down to reflect on the lo...

Foster care is hard. Not just emotionally, but practically. Kids often arrive with nothing. Families are stretched thin. Support can feel fragmented or temporary. In this episode of the Dream Small Podcast, we sit down with Renae, Executive Director of Resources of Hope, a nonprofit based in Whiteland, Indiana, that is quietly and faithfully wrapping around foster, kinship, and adoptive families w...

There’s a common myth that foster parents “do it for the money.” In this episode of the Dream Small Podcast, we walk through the real financial support foster parents receive in Indiana, including per diem rates, reimbursements, adoption subsidies, and why none of it comes close to covering the true cost of caring for a child. If you’ve ever wondered: Do foster parents get paid? How much money do...

Some weeks feel like a year. And for foster and adoptive families, those weeks often come with sick kids, missed church services, packed calendars, emotional exhaustion, and moments where you wonder how everything is going to get done. In this episode, Jason and Whitney invite you into one very long, very real week in their home. From fevers and stomach bugs to basketball games that start early, o...

What does it actually take for a church to support foster and adoptive families well, not just in theory, but in real, practical ways? In this powerful episode of the Dream Small Podcast, Jason and Whitney sit down with Deidra, a mom of 12 children (a mix of biological, adopted and foster) and a leader in a thriving foster care and adoption ministry. Deidra shares her family’s incredible story and...

Foster care comes with paperwork, training, and background checks, but no one really prepares you for the surprise rules. In this episode of the Dream Small Podcast, Jason and Whitney pull back the curtain on the unexpected, confusing, and weird rules they’ve encountered throughout their foster care journey. From needing court approval to take a foster child out of state, to regulations around hai...

What does it really mean to parent fairly? In this episode of Dream Small, Jason and Whitney dive into a powerful parenting truth that came straight from one of their own kids: fair doesn’t always mean equal. Inspired by an insightful conversation with their son Benny, they unpack why different children, especially those impacted by trauma, autism, ADHD, or other forms of neurodiversity, often nee...

What happens when you hand the microphone to your kids and ask them what Christmas is really about? In this special Christmas episode of Dream Small, Jason and Whitney sit down with their three oldest children - Lia, Laney, and Benny - for an unfiltered, unscripted conversation about Jesus, family, foster care, and the meaning of Christmas. With honesty, humor, and wisdom well beyond their years,...

In this deeply personal episode of the Dream Small Podcast, Jason and Whitney discuss the unexpected day that changed everything - the day Whitney was diagnosed with cancer. Whitney walks through what she felt, how she told Jason, what it was like to hear the word carcinoma, and how faith held her through moments of fear, confusion, and waiting. From navigating biopsies and PET scans to wrestling...