Compare methods

	McMaster Family Assessment	Ecomap Analysis
Field	Social Work	Social Work
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1983	1978
Originator	Nathan B. Epstein, Duane S. Bishop & colleagues (McMaster University)	Ann Hartman
Type	Theory-based assessment of family functioning across defined dimensions	Graphical, qualitative person-in-environment assessment tool
Seminal source	Epstein, N. B., Baldwin, L. M., & Bishop, D. S. (1983). The McMaster Family Assessment Device. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 9(2), 171–180.	Hartman, A. (1978). Diagrammatic assessment of family relationships. Social Casework, 59(8), 465–476.
Aliases	McMaster Model of Family Functioning, McMaster Family Assessment Device, MMFF, McMaster Approach to Family Assessment	Ecomap, Eco-Map, Ecological Map, Hartman Ecomap
Related	4	3
Summary	McMaster family assessment is a theory-driven approach to evaluating how a family functions, organized around the McMaster Model of Family Functioning and operationalized in the widely used Family Assessment Device. Developed by Nathan Epstein, Duane Bishop, and colleagues at McMaster University, it assesses families on six dimensions — problem solving, communication, roles, affective responsiveness, affective involvement, and behavior control — plus an overall general-functioning scale, each scored from family-member self-report against clinical cutoffs that distinguish healthy from unhealthy functioning.	An ecomap is a graphical map of a household or individual set within their social environment, showing the connections between the focal system and the external systems around it — extended family, work, school, health care, friends, agencies, religion, and recreation — and coding each connection as strong, tenuous, or stressful, with arrows for the flow of energy and resources. Ecomap analysis is the practice of drawing and interpreting this map to assess the person-in-environment, the central organizing concept of social work. It was introduced by Ann Hartman in 1978.