Heather McCain didn’t found the Live Educate Transform Society (LET’S) because they were looking to build an organization.
They founded it because they were living inside a system that wasn’t listening.
“I had already been having troubles finding resources and having a disability,” Heather said. “It was very isolating. I had graduated high school and then my body kind of fell apart. And for six years, I essentially only left the house for medical appointments, trying to get a diagnosis.”
During that time, Heather created a chronic pain support group to connect with others who are going through similar experiences.
They also began to see how little representation disabled people had, especially people whose disabilities did not fit the narrow stories the public was used to hearing.
And then came the issue that pushed everything forward.
Heather was using a power wheelchair at the time and facing repeated barriers on public transit.
“Transit drivers would lie and say that the ramps weren’t operating so that they didn’t have to lower the ramp,” they said. Heather wrote “letter after letter to TransLink with no response.”
Then someone in the support group joked that Heather should start their own organization. So, they did.
After that, Heather sent the exact same letter again, only this time with “Executive Director” under their name.
“I got a response a week later,” Heather said.
That story says a great deal about why LET’S was needed in the first place.
It was never just about one transit complaint. It was about what happens when disabled people are expected to fight to be heard, explain their own humanity, and prove their own needs before anyone takes them seriously.
So, what started as a grassroots effort in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows has since grown into LET’S, an organization run and staffed by disabled and neurodivergent people, many of whom are also 2SLGBTQIA+, who use their lived experience to create change through workshops, consulting, advocacy, and education.
Heather will also be speaking at BC CRN’s Provincial Learning Event on Disability Awareness on May 19.
Their message is deeply relevant to Community Response Networks across B.C., as it speaks to what safer communities actually require, and why equity and accessibility are not just side issues when it comes to abuse prevention.
Built by Community, Shaped by Lived Experience
Heather described LET’S as community-driven from the beginning.
“So, really, it started with me and some people from the chronic pain support group,” they said.
As the work began to have an impact, more people in the disability community found out about the organization. And as a result, its reach grew, online access expanded its audience, and new relationships have shaped its direction.
Heather also spoke about how intersectionality became a much more intentional part of LET’S’ work over time.
“People like me, who are queer, trans, disabled, neurodivergent, sometimes we have to figure out who we’re representing in what spaces,” they said. “And it’d be nice to just show up as ourselves, and the full complexity of who we are.”
That idea of full complexity is incredibly important, not least because it pushes back against the tidy, simplified depictions of disability that people are still exposed to.
What’s more, it also helps explain why LET’S has remained committed to work that comes from the community itself.
“There are a lot of things about our community, but not by our community,” Heather said. “And that’s been a through line for the organization.”
For Heather, lived experience is not a marketing phrase or a symbolic gesture. It’s the difference between getting something right and getting it wrong.
“For a long time, accessibility was created for us by people outside of our community,” they said. “And when that accessibility didn’t actually meet our needs, they would be quite frustrated with us and make us feel like we were the problem, instead of them actually listening to us.”
This doesn’t just create bad policy. It creates harm, as it leaves people unheard, misrepresented, and excluded from conversations that are supposed to address their needs.
Heather put it even more plainly by saying, “I don’t want people to imagine what it’s like to be disabled. I want them to listen to disabled people explain what it’s like to be disabled.”
Moving Beyond Narrow Ideas of Disability
Heather pointed out that one of the biggest misunderstandings people still have is how narrow their idea of disability is.
“The very most basic one is that people do not understand the broad spectrum of disability,” they said.
Heather pointed to the international symbol of accessibility as one reason. “It is a person in a wheelchair. And so that very much has reinforced to a lot of people that disability equals a wheelchair.”
That limited view affects everything, including how people judge whether someone is “disabled enough” to need support, accommodation, or understanding.
Heather spoke about how that plays out in everyday situations.
For instance, a person with chronic pain may need to sit at an accessible counter but feel shame doing so if they’re not visibly disabled.
At the same time, a service may assume online delivery is enough, even when not everyone has devices, digital literacy, or reliable access.
Heather’s point isn’t that accessibility is simple. It’s actually the opposite.
“Accessibility isn’t one thing,” they said. “It’s not the old model of, like we’re offering everyone the same thing. It’s being flexible and adaptive and having options.”
Why Heather Prefers Equity Over Inclusion
“Our organization doesn’t use the word inclusive,” Heather said, “because it actually is still centring a dominant group and having them invite others in.”
This distinction matters, especially for organizations and community groups that believe they’re doing the right thing because they’ve invited more people into the room.
Heather challenged that idea directly.
“They invite people in, but they haven’t changed the actual systems or structures that those people are being invited into,” they said.
And that lesson has broad relevance.
Because a community can say it wants more voices at the table, a workplace can say it values diversity, and a business owner can say everyone is welcome.
But if power, communication, culture, expectations, and decision making stay the same, then many people still will not experience that space as equitable.
How LET’S Relates to Abuse Prevention
“The rates of abuse are much higher within disability communities,” Heather said.
They spoke about the many reasons for that, including the fact that disabled people are often not given the language to name what is happening to them.
Moreover, their experiences may be invalidated or minimized, consent can become blurred in medical and caregiving contexts, families may be carrying stress and frustration without enough support, and systems may be so hard to access that people don’t know where to turn until the situation has reached a crisis point.
Heather put it this way: “One of the biggest inaccessibilities is that there aren’t avenues for so many equity-denied communities to report problems before they even get to the point of abuse.”
And that means abuse prevention is not only about what happens once harm becomes obvious.
It’s also about whether people can speak sooner, whether they know how to start the conversation, whether they believe they’ll be heard, and whether there are structures in place that allow them to reach out before the situation becomes unbearable.
Heather spoke powerfully about shame here, too.
“One of the things with abuse is that so many people take that shame on themselves because that’s how they’ve been made to feel,” they said.
And that shame shuts down conversation because it makes people think they should have done something differently, and it makes them feel responsible for what’s happened to them.
That’s one reason Heather sees honest conversation as so important.
“It’s really important to have more honest conversations about, here’s my experience, which then empowers somebody else.”
What Heather Hopes People Take Away From Their Talk
When asked what they want people to take away from their talk at the BC CRN Provincial Learning Event, Heather said they hope people become more interested in these issues.
“What I most hope people leave my workshops with is curiosity,” they said. “A desire to learn more.”
However, Heather isn’t offering a neat endpoint. In fact, they pushed back against that idea.
“There is no truly accessible and equitable community,” they said. “Accessibility doesn’t have an endpoint.”
And that means communities need to keep listening, keep learning, keep adjusting, and keep asking what’s missing, who is being overlooked, and what would make it easier for people to participate, report concerns, and be heard.
Heather’s story fits naturally into BC CRN’s mission because it reminds us that communities become safer when they take equity and accessibility seriously from the start, not after someone has already been harmed.
At any rate, the lesson here is not that one workshop solves everything.
And Heather is clear about that, too.
“It’s not about taking a workshop on disability, and that’s now covered,” they said. “It’s about that ongoing learning, both for the organizations and the individuals.”
From Heather’s perspective, safer communities are built as a result of that ongoing learning.
They’re built when people stop assuming.
They’re built when access becomes practical, relational, and real.
They’re built when systems themselves change, not just their language.
And they’re built when people with lived experience are not merely consulted at the edges of the conversation but listened to as the centre of the discussion.
BC CRN will be welcoming Heather to speak at the Provincial Learning Event on May 19. Learn more and register.
