The Ulsterman's accessible, open-door policy at The NYA along with his eloquence and wit have endeared him to nearly all who have come into professional contact with him.
Wylie's gathering fell rather fittingly on the same day as the publication of the Government's youth strategy, Aiming high for young people: a ten-year strategy for positive activities, which will feed into October's Comprehensive Spending Review. Providing testimony to his influence, minister for the third sector Phil Hope said Wylie's "fingerprints" were all over the strategy.
The document's stress on empowerment through giving young people more budget-holding responsibilities and access through an expansion in youth facilities is hugely welcome - as is the 184m of new investment. But while the strategy demonstrates proper focus on providing young people with "places to go" and "things to do", it has underplayed the importance of the "someone to talk to" epithet of Youth Matters. A consistent bugbear of Wylie's has been the insufficient attention paid to youth workforce development at all levels. Youth work is not just about having a youth centre to go to, just like having a house is not necessarily the same as having a home.
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