SHREVEPORT – As an LSUS student, Angela Bowman-White couldn’t pick just one track of study.
She loved sociology, criminal justice and a whole host of other courses that led her to complete a general studies degree in 2008.
Fast forward to 2023, and Bowman-White is applying every bit of that knowledge as the director of the only adoption agency of its kind in the region.
After a career in community and outpatient mental health centers, her mentor suggested that she work with D. Missy Everson at Open Arms Adoption Services, Inc.
“Adoption was completely different than the mental health arena,” said Bowman-White, who earned a masters in social work from LSU in 2012. “I primarily worked with families hoping to adopt since I began at the agency in 2016.
“But when (Everson) announced she planned to retire, she groomed me to take over the agency.”
That meant diving into the adoption arena from the perspective of birth mothers who choose adoption as well as the business concepts of operating the agency.
Open Arms specializes in infant and toddler placement in Louisiana, connecting adoptive families and birth mothers.
The agency offers services such as various types of support for birth mothers through their pregnancies, allowing the birth family to choose the adoptive parents if they desire, and intensive orientation, home study and post-adoption supervision of adoptive parents.
Bowman-White assumed control in early 2023 after a year of intense mentorship from Everson.
“I met with (Everson) multiple times each month to glean all the knowledge she could offer, and I sought additional training with a certificate Training for Adoption Competency through the Center for Adoption Support and Education,” Bowman-White said. “I soaked in everything I could find to prepare myself.”
Whether it’s being present at births or working around a family’s schedule for evening or weekend supervision visits, Bowman-White might be running the roads all across northwest Louisiana.
“I very much feel like adoption work is purposeful, there’s a bigger picture behind it – it’s not just a job,” Bowman-White said. “I can see a bigger hand moving the pieces.
“When you see a lifelong, ongoing relationship with a birth family and adoptive family staying connected, it’s a beautiful thing.”
The organization’s array of services are needed more than ever after Louisiana banned virtually all abortions in 2022. Exceptions do exist in cases where the mother’s life is in danger or the fetus is not expected to survive the pregnancy.
Open Arms’ services extend well beyond the actual adoption. Counseling services to the adopted child, birth families and adoptive families are available.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s been five weeks or five years since the adoption, we offer counseling services throughout the lifecycle of that adoption,” Bowman-White said. “Part of the benefit of placing through an agency like ours is that those lifelong resources exist. It’s broader than just the adoption.”
The adoption field meshes Bowman-White’s varied interests she discovered in part through LSUS – whether it’s aiding pregnant mothers who might be in unstable environments or assuring a couple battling infertility.
The LaPREP graduate spent three summers as a middle schooler on LSUS’s campus in addition to visiting her father Michael Bowman, who worked in computing services at LSUS.
“LSUS has always been a force in my life,” Bowman-White said.
November is National Adoption Month.
To learn more about Open Arms Adoption Services Inc., visit openarmsadoptions.com.
