Content note: the interview discusses experiences of trauma,discrimination, and other sensitive topics that may be distressing to some readers. 

Dignity Seniors Society (DSS) is pleased to share an October, 2025 interview by Healthcare Excellence Canada with our Chair, Darren Usher! The piece is in honor of Canadian Patient Safety Week 2025. This year’s theme - All Voices for Safer Care - is an invitation to listen more deeply, ask important questions, and take meaningful action – together.

Some wounds never show on the surface. They live quietly in the way a person lowers their voice or glances around before speaking their truth. Darren Usher has dedicated himself to tending those invisible injuries, the ones left by decades of being silenced, shamed, and forgotten. As Chair of Dignity Seniors Society in British Columbia, he works with and for 2SLGBTQIA+ seniors to make care safer, more inclusive and rooted in dignity. For him, safety begins with connection – with being seen, heard, and free to be yourself. … Safety, he explains, grows with each person, shaped by trust, experience and care. “When care is culturally appropriate,” he adds, “ it becomes safer by default.

That belief underpins Dignity Seniors Society’s trauma-informed, strengths-based approach – especially through We Are Familee, a volunteer-led initiative that helps 2SLGBTQIA+ older adults to age in place, supported in part by Healthcare Excellence Canada through the Enabling Aging in Place collaborative.

“It’s about not making the participant fit your program, but making your program fit the participant,” Darren explains. “It requires flexibility. You build around the person’s pace and needs, not the volunteer’s schedule.”

…

For Darren, the work is both personal and collective – an act of repair and of possibility. Each conversation, each act of care, helps rebuild trust in systems that once caused harm. He knows change takes time. But he also sees proof every day that it’s happening – in the voices that no longer whisper, and in the quiet certainty that no one should have to hide to be cared for.

…

Read the complete interview here! DSS is grateful for funding generously provided by Healthcare Excellence Canada!

… Or, do you know one?

Join Dignity Seniors Society's We Are Familee: Rainbow Circle
program and receive social visits and support from one of
our trained volunteers! Contact: volunteer@dignityseniors.org

Dignity Seniors Society (DSS) is very pleased to announce its new program collaboration with West End Seniors’ Network (WESN).

With the generous support of United Way BC (read their June 2025 story about us here), DSS has launched its Rainbow Circle program - which aims to complement WESN's existing programs in Vancouver's West End and Coal Harbour areas.

Our Rainbow Circle volunteers are 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals, fully trained and supported by DSS and WESN to work with our communities' older adults 55+ to help them stay at home longer.

If you, or anyone you know, would like to take part in this program, please contact DSS or WESN and ask to connect with the Rainbow Circle.

• DSS: tel: 778-535-3260 | email: volunteer@dignityseniors.org

• WESN: tel: 604-669-5051 | email: info@wesn.ca

• Poster - please share!

DSS is dedicated to affecting systemic change that creates culturally appropriate services for 2SLGBTQIA+ seniors across British Columbia.

DSS gratefully acknowledges funding generously provided by

• Government of Canada’s New Horizons for Seniors Program

• United Way British Columbia

Dignity Seniors Society gratefully acknowledges that we live and work on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples - the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

It is with great pride that Dignity Seniors Society announces the QT-Elders for 2025.  Identified through community nominations, these four outstanding individuals further demonstrate the profound impacts that elders have had on enriching and safeguarding 2SLGBTQIA+ communities.

What better way to commemorate the anniversary of the Stonewall Revolution on June 28th than to honour our QT-Elders?  

The goal of the QT-Elders Project is to identify, honour and celebrate 2SLGBTQIA+ elders in British Columbia. These are individuals who have contributed to the flourishing of our communities through their leadership, altruism, and courage.

Link to social media poster (thanks Barb!).

Meet our 2025 QT-Elders

Some may be familiar to you, but all are deserving of our respect and thanks. 

Each QT-Elder was asked to provide a personalized statement on what being an elder means to them. We hope you find their stories to be powerful, humbling and inspirational.

Please visit our 2025 QT-Elders web page for more information.

Aaron Devor

“For me, being an elder is about having lived long enough to have made, and seen, lots of mistakes, and to have gained some wisdom by learning from them.” [ bio ]

Ellen Woodsworth

“As a QT-Elder, I reflect on all that our queer intersectional movements have fought for and achieved. I believe it is critical that we continue like Chris Morrissey did with all our strength and wisdom to join together for a world for all, standing up to the rise of the far-right.” [ bio ]

Sir John Taylor

“It is important to stay visible in the community and work as a mentor and teacher for young people who are coming out in these challenging times. Being active and visible is key for me, bridging young people to seniors is extremely important for mutual learning. Preparing our new leaders is the goal.” [ bio ]

Ron Dutton

“While my commitment to our queer community remains intense as I age, my perspective has shifted: I can now identify historical patterns as they repeat, old ideas and political strategies that resurface in new forms, changes in how information is delivered, the persistence of ignorance and hate, and can spot uniquely new emerging trends and creative community initiatives. Collectively, we are a lively, ever-evolving bunch that keeps me engaged, excited ... and young.” [ bio ]