Kingston City Council approved an award of contract for the first conversion therapy survivors support group in Canada. C.T. Survivors Connect started online last July as a support group for conversion therapy survivors across Canada. Executive Director and Founder of C.T. Survivors Connect Ben Rodgers says the contract will allow the group to have a home base in Kingston. The funding will also provide more opportunities to broaden the support group and make it more accessible.

"We are looking to expand to have a bilingual offering...We would also like to get a support worker on our staff," says Rodgers.

According to Rodgers, another aspect the group will focus on is education.

"We are working on some educational pieces, like C.T. 101's that we can administer to the education sector, health, law enforcement....The support programs are only for survivors, but we need to be able to educate people as well...The only educational pieces that technically exist are surveys...that have some of the statistics, but there's no real educational pieces to teach anyone why the harms are there and why we need to get rid of them."

Ben Rodgers created the program as a for survivors by survivors program.

"I am a survivor myself, I've realized there is nothing to help us out there...We've created a support group where survivors have a sense of community, you can come and be who you are and not be afraid of it," says Rodgers.

The City of Kingston has awarded C.T. Survivors Connect with $20 thousand dollars per year for the next three years.

Listen to the full CFRC interview with Ben Rodgers below: