A Walton man has been invited to present a paper at an international conference about psychiatry and addiction.

Steven Walker, 70, will be presenting a chapter his book, with the chapter titled Poverty: The Risk to Children's Mental Health as a keynote speaker at the Addiction and Psychiatry conference. 

It focuses on how research often focuses on diagnosing but they don't highlight enough of the underlying concepts.

Steven said: "If you're not tackling one of the causes then you're just treating the symptoms."

The event takes place from November 18-19 in Rome.

Mr Walker has published more than 50 academic papers, 12 books and has presented at 12 international conferences. 

He said: "I'm thrilled to be invited in the first place but to be a keynote speaker is quite an honour.

"My paper is a review of the link between poverty and mental illness which can lead to a variety of addictions that impact the whole family.

"But the orthodox assessment and training manuals fail in my opinion to examine the underlying socio economic context of mental health problems.

"As I review the evidence and data on the link between poverty and children's mental health, I'm feeling a mixture of rage, hopelessness and frustration after working, researching and teaching in this area.

"So it's motivated me to do my best in front of an international audience of psychiatric experts to motivate them to consider this risk factor in the aetiology of mental illness."

Mr Walker was in charge of child and adolescent mental health training courses at Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford before he retired, but stays involved by doing voluntary work.