Bio

Dr Philip Mendes is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Work at Monash University. He is the author or co-author of six books including most recently Australia's Welfare Wars Revisited (UNSW Press, 2008) and is currently a leading researcher on two leaving care projects funded respectively by the Helen McPherson Smith Trust and the
Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.

Philip Mendes's contributions:

Abuse and Neglect in Care - Then and Now

Philip Mendes considers contemporary leaving care policy and practice: Looking at the 2004 Forgotten Australians report on people who experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children, it would be very easy to conclude that these events were an historical anomaly which have little bearing on contemporary child welfare policy and practice. And to be sure the state care system has changed considerably since that time, and arguably for the better. But the evidence suggests that some (and perhaps even many) children and young people currently or recently in care have experienced forms of abuse and neglect similar to those described in the Forgotten Australians, and that this abuse and neglect is similarly undermining their long-term life chances. So there is no doubt that we need to learn some key lessons from the Forgotten Australians if we are to avoid similar suffering in the future.

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• Health
• Welfare Policy

When leaving home means being abandoned

Much has been written about the apparent failure of child protection authorities to rescue children from situations of significant abuse or neglect, or to protect the rights of children who are living in substitute care writes Philip Mendes. But the real national scandal is arguably the sudden abandonment of young care leavers when their protective court order ceases between the age of 16-18 years.

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• by Miriam Lyons
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• Welfare Policy

A different kind of welfare reform

Philip Mendes explains why spending on social services has ballooned under a government that believes in letting people fend for themselves. He outlines an alternative vision for welfare reform that would give service recipients more power over their own future

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• by Philip Mendes
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• Welfare Policy