Professor Philip Mendes
Director of the Social Inclusion and Social Policy Research Unit (SISPRU)
BA & BSW (University of Melbourne), PhD (Latrobe University)
philip.mendes@monash.edu
+61 3 9903 1132
Profile
Professor Philip Mendes is a nationally and internationally recognized researcher in several social policy areas. He has published 13 books, and over 150 peer reviewed articles. He is also the recipient of major research grants including five ARC grants for which he was CI. He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for a number of academic journals including Children and Youth Services Review, the International Journal of Community and Social Development, Australian Social Work, and Children Australia.
His research has had a significant impact on contemporary social policy debates and outcomes through providing an evidence base for informing change. The impact of his work has been especially evident in two areas, namely, young people transitioning from forms of out-of-home care (OOHC) such as foster, kinship and residential care, and social security payments including particularly conditional welfare as manifested in the compulsory income management program.
Mendes has been researching young people transitioning from OOHC for over 25 years. He has produced more than 40 significant publications on this topic, and is recognized internationally (via his long-term involvement in the leaving care academic research network known as INTRAC): https://globalintrac.com/ as one of the major researchers in this field.
His research has been widely utilized by Australian government and non-government service providers alike, and contributed to improved policy and practice with care leavers. This is evidenced by numerous citations of his work in leading national policy reports, and particularly the recent introduction of extended care programs until 21 years of age in all Australian jurisdictions. Additionally, his work has actively informed the policy recommendations of the OECD on care leavers as reflected in their 2022 report called Assisting care leavers: Time for action.
Compulsory income management (IM) is a form of conditional welfare involving the quarantining of a percentage of social security payments such as the JobSeeker payment for spending on food, rent and other essential items in a number of sites across Australia. Mendes has been actively researching the philosophical, policy and evaluation debates around IM programs since they were first introduced in 2007. He has completed a number of funded studies, guest edited special issues of the Australian Journal of Social Issues and Social Alternatives, and participated in academic conference Symposiums.
These activities informed the successful application for an ARC Discovery Grant in 2017 which resulted in a major report titled Hidden Costs, a book titled Compulsory Income Management in Australia and New Zealand published by Policy Press, and 11 peer reviewed journal articles (Mendes was lead author of four), one of which won the Mayer Journal prize for 2021. The project’s evidence-based critique of the limitations of IM arguably influenced the Federal Labor Government’s abolition of the Cashless Debit Card in 2022.
Indigenous care leavers in Australia: a national scoping study