The Office of the Auditor-General New Zealand has a programme of work focusing on the Government’s efforts to achieve significant and sustained reductions in family violence, sexual violence, and child abuse and neglect. The purpose of this report is to inform this programme of work by providing an overview of what is currently known about people’s and service providers’ experiences of the family violence system in Aotearoa.

The report includes a narrative literature review of research and evaluation studies conducted in Aotearoa since 2010 and an annotated bibliography of 136 studies. To identify the main publications, the authors searched the New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse Timeline. They identified further relevant publications through a focused literature search. While they endeavoured to include as many relevant studies as possible, there were limitations due to time and accessibility to unpublished work.

The concept of intersectionality seeks to explain how structural inequities may impact on people’s lived experience. There is emerging literature on the different experiences of the ‘family violence service system’ and the particular needs and vulnerabilities of different groups. We examine literature on the experiences of Māori whānau and kaupapa Māori providers in Chapters 3 and 4. The available literature about the experiences of Pacific peoples, older people, people with disabilities, LGBTQIA+/Rainbow community, and male victims is also reviewed.