Amy Morgan, student in the MFT program area, was the recipient of the 2018 Family Therapy Section Best Student Research Paper Award from the National Council on Family Relations.  Amy and her co-first author, Jessica Goodman, and co-authors Jennifer Hodgson and Benjamin Caldwell, received this award in recognition for their paper, “From Private Practice to Academia: Integrating Social and Political Advocacy into Every MFT Identity.”  The paper has been published in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. 

According to Amy, the motivation for this paper came from “our shared interest in increasing advocacy competence in the MFT field.  Above all, this paper is a call to action at an urgent time for the MFT profession.  With many legislative issues at both the consumer and profession level, the MFT field is behind in training and engaging MFTs in advocacy and policy. This paper serves as a starting point for all MFTs, across all settings and experience, to become involved in public participation.”