A new sex offender pilot program has started in Whitehorse.

The Forensic Sex Offender Program is the first of its kind in the territory. It’s offering nine convicted sex offenders cognitive behavioural therapy to address the factors that lead to reoffending.

“Cognitive behavioural therapy is basically focused on helping the client to manage and change their emotions, thoughts, and behaviours that cause the problem,” Leah White, the manager of offender supervision and services for the territorial Department of Justice, said in an interview with the Star this morning.

“It helps in developing and externalizing the requisite attitudes and skills that are going to prevent reoffending.”

White explained that the pilot was developed because the department saw a need for a therapy element in sex offender programming.

Currently in the Yukon there is a Sexual Offender Risk Management Program (SORMP) but, like many smaller jurisdictions, there is an absence of a forensic sex offender treatment facility which can offer psychiatric help.

“What we are seeing in the Sexual Offender Risk Management Program is that we needed something more in order for it to be as effective as possible,” said White.

She noted that Yukon’s sexual assault rate is four times higher than the national average.

Four offenders in the Whitehorse Correctional Centre and five serving community sentences are participating in the three-month pilot before they join SORMP, which lasts for the duration of their sentence.

The pilot addresses several factors including empathy, intimacy, healthy relationships, and cognitive distortions or thinking errors.

“It’s around really having the individual understanding the harm that has been done and the impact that harm has done,” White said of the empathy component.

She also explained that everyone experiences thinking errors, one of the most common being “all or nothing thinking.

“It’s either black or white; ‘either everybody likes me or everybody hates me,’” she said.

The pilot also helps offenders create behavioural progression logs and self-management plans.

White says these logs help offenders to understand behaviours and risk factors that “bring clients to a point where they believe that sexualized violence is OK.”

“It may seem like that’s something offenders would understand, but they might not get that,” she said.

The self-management plan helps offenders to cope with these risk factors and make better choices.

“It’s a perfect opportunity for intervention to happen,” said White.

“Just because a person is thinking of reoffending, then here’s an option to stop that from happening.”

Because the program is a pilot, White said, it will take time to determine if it will develop into permanent programming.

“So we can look at tweaking the program to make sure that we’re fitting the clients’ needs,” she said.

She hopes that if the pilot proves to be successful, it will provide a new treatment option for the territory and other jurisdictions that lack forensic sex offender treatment facilities.

“That to me would be the key,” she said.

To qualify for the program, participants have to have been found guilty of a sexual offence and sentenced to jail time or a community supervision order.

They also must undergo comprehensive risk assessments to determine if this treatment is appropriate.