This report provides guidance to policy-makers in helping to assist them in understanding and anticipating the impacts of policies and services on diverse families. It does not attempt to act as a ready-to-apply assessment tool. Rather, it acts as a toolkit of approaches that can be tailored to answer specific policy questions. The report reviews four key approaches to assessing policy impacts that have been used in other comparable countries, and which may be adapted for application to New Zealand families. The four approaches include: microeconomic analysis, gender policy analysis, impact assessment, and family impact assessment. Each of the approaches discusses the applicability for family-centred analysis. Although this report does not specifically examine a particular piece of policy in relation to family violence, having a focus of family in policy analysis allows governments to become partners to families. It can inform policy intervention, particularly with respect to family safety, and protection from domestic violence. The report concludes with a discussion on guiding policy analysts concerning the circumstances in which the four approaches can be best applied.

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