Professor Philip Mendes teaches Social Policy and Community Development, and is the Director of the Social Inclusion and Social Policy Research Unit in the Department of Social Work. His key research areas include young people transitioning from out-home-care, income support including compulsory income management, social workers and policy practice, illicit drugs policy, Indigenous social policy, and Jewish community responses to institutional child sexual abuse. He is a member of the  Transitions to Adulthood for Young People Leaving Public Care International Research Group, and won the 2019 Faculty of Medicine Dean's Award for Excellence in Research Impact. He is the author or editor of 12 books, and the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed academic journal articles and book chapters. His latest books include the 3rd edition of the popular textbook, Australia's Welfare Wars, published by UNSW Press in 2017, and Empowerment and Control in the Australian Welfare State (Routledge, 2019).