Effective assessment in social work practice is an inclusive process that is (a) ecological (considers all of the interrelated aspects of the developing client system and its evolving environment); (b) both scientific and artistic (uses all ways of knowing in the data collection process); (c) sensitive to client/system diversity (identifies the unique characteristics of every client/system); and (d) an ongoing source of feedback (uses data in formulating goals to appraise risk and potential, guiding interventions, and measuring the impact of interventions throughout all of the phases of a case). Therefore, the term assessment is used to describe the process of evaluation throughout the beginning, middle, and ending phases of each case. In this section, these four characteristics of both/and assessment are defined and developed.