Valerie K. Copeland

Valerie Copeland
Associate Pastor
Leadership and Administration

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Valerie Copeland is a native of Boston, Massachusetts. She began her relationship with Jesus Christ in 1990 and has been actively involved in Kingdom work ever since. Over the years she discovered a passion for blessing adolescent girls and women to live healthy, whole and purposeful lives. In October of 2007, she was ordained as a pastor at Life Church Ministries. Valerie lives in Roxbury with her husband Al Copeland.

Valerie Copeland, Associate Pastor Valerie was born in Boston, Massachusetts and attended Boston public schools.

Valerie received a Certificate in Urban Studies from the Community Fellows Program of Massachusetts Institute of Technologyin Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1995 and she received her B.A. in Community Planning & Management from the University of Massachusetts, Boston in 1998.

In 1990 Valerie committed her life to following Jesus Christ. As she grew in her relationship with the Lord she has grown in service to her community. Valerie has had several years of experience designing, developing and delivering services to improve the lives and circumstances of urban youth and communities with unique challenges:

• She has worked in partnership with Boston Police Youth Violence Strike Force and Operation HomeFront, the Department of Youth Services, the Boston Ten Point Coalition, probation and local public schools.
• She has specialized in creating services for system involved girls. In response to documented gaps in services for vulnerable populations of girls, she has coordinated city and state agencies, along with local service providers, to deliver targeted programming for DYS committed girls through the Female Focus Initiative for Roxbury Youth Works, Inc.
• She trained 35 adolescent girls to serve as peer educators and to plan two health summits.
• She developed the Girls Get Real after school program
• She planned the YWCA Boston's 2nd and 3rd Annual Health and Wellness Summits for adolescent girls.

Valerie feels a particular calling to help women and adolescent girls live healthy, whole and purposeful lives. Here are some of her accomplishments in this area:

• She devised My Sister’s Keeper, a girls’ mentoring program matching dozens of women from local churches with system involved girls.
• She delivered comprehensive trainings for 100 people in churches seeking to mentor high-risk girls.
• She served on the Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee 2003-2005-appointed by former Governor Mitt Romney as a member of the newly reconstituted State Advisory Group. She co-chaired the committee on gender-specific programming.
• She co-chaired the Dorchester Community Roundtable’s Subcommittee on Dating Violence and conceived and launched a public education campaign.
• She created the Committee on Girls’ Matters, an interagency collaboration comprising probation, schools, detention centers, community-based organizations, university researchers, police, mental health providers, and the attorney general’s office to develop wraparound services for high-risk girls.
• In 2001, she coordinated an ad hoc committee to organize Boston’s first two-day conference on girls: “Celebrating Boston’s Girls: Sharing Resources, Building Strength.” More than 300 practitioners, researchers, and girls participated.
• She created and co-chaired the Girls’ Services Committee consisting of practitioners for the purpose of improving the delivery of DYS girls’ services.

Valerie has worked in partnership with the following agencies:

• Boston Police Youth Violence Strike Force & Operation HomeFront
• Masschusetts Department of Youth Services
• Boston Ten Point Coalition
• Probation Department
• Local Public Schools
• Roxbury Youth Works, Inc. (Female Focus Initiative)

In October of 2007, Valerie was ordained as a pastor at Life Church. Valerie lives in Roxbury with her husband Al.