National first-place analysis by MFT students

East Carolina University College of Health and Human Performance students Annelise Billings, Caroline Tumulty-Ollemar and Jadalee Eyma wrote an award-winning essay on a national level. Their group submission, representing themselves, HHP, the Department of Human Development and Family Science and the marriage and family therapy program, earned them first place in the ninth annual American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Student Ethics Competition.

Their winning paper used a hypothetical scenario to identify an ethical dilemma, analyzed decision making and provided a conclusion to the scenarios and data presented. The AAMFT determines awards after scoring by current and former members of its ethics committee and current and former members of the judicial committee.

ECU’s team earned first place, followed by the University of South Florida in second place and Fairfield University third.

Billings said: “Participating in the ethics competition was a great experience for me. It gave our group the opportunity to apply what we have learned throughout our program to a real-life scenario. I appreciated the challenge of writing beautifully and succinctly. It was such a surprise and honor to have won the competition. I am excited we were able to represent ECU and the MFT program so well.”

Eyma said: ” After spending well over 20-plus hours writing, editing and re-writing our paper for the AAMFT ethics competition, it was so rewarding to be named the winners! I am so grateful to my teammates for their hard work and dedication, and to our program director for supporting us through the process. I certainly have a newfound appreciation for the ethical codes that will continue to guide our careers for the foreseeable future.”

Faculty mentor Dr. Andy Brimhall said he was confident in the students because they are exceptionally bright, excellent writers and are able to think through very complicated situations. He also recently asked them and they accepted to do a guest lecture highlighting their work to this year’s class on Ethics in MFT.

“I am incredibly proud of these three amazing women for their poise, their intellect, and their incredible ability to work through a complicated scenario and provide a thorough analysis that proved to be award-winning,” Brimhall said. “More importantly, I am incredibly privileged to work with students who not only write amazing ethical responses, but live and interact with their clients in such ethical ways.”

Annelise Billings

Caroline Tumulty-Ollemar

Jadalee Eyma