Al righty I think we're good to go okay I'm so good afternoon everybody my name is Katie molio uh I'm the community engagement coordinator and Community liaison for yukon's Hab um Yukon technical assistant for brownfields so welcome to our third webinar in our community engagement series we started out with our seeds framework then moved into the stakeholder analysis and today we're going to be talking about our SWAT analysis tool and how it can be used in Brownfield treade development and Commu
nity engagement so my background is in social work I got my bachelor's degree and my Master's Degree in Social Work gr from the University of Connecticut and I'm joined today by a wonderful mssw student Joselyn do you want to introduce yourself yeah thank you Katie my name is Joselyn theel I'm an MSW student currently at the University of Connecticut school social work um I'm doing an independent study this semester where I'm working with Katie and the community engagement team at tab with some
of their webinars and other community engagement projects so I'm really glad to be here as a guest speaker today awesome thank you so much so let's get started um so here is our agenda for today we're going to just start with a brief overview of the SWAT analysis going over some of the basics what is a SWAT analysis who uses a SWAT analysis when should we use a SWAT analysis um and I'll also go into some more specific examples of situations in which SWAT analysis would be useful in brownfields R
edevelopment um and then Justin will go into a bit more detail on what exactly the strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats mean in the context of brownfields Redevelopment um what these might look like in our communities um so then we will just shortly go over why a SWAT analysis is such an important tool in brownfields Redevelopment and Jocelyn will finish us off with a hypothetical case study uh based on her hometown Cheshire Connecticut and this is just going to give everyone a chance
to see the process of completing a SWAT analysis and what one looks like when it's all done um we'll also have time at the end for questions and we should have no issues getting you out of here before the 30 minute Mark so first and foremost SWAT analysis stands for strengths opportunities weaknesses and threats joclyn will dive deeper into what this means in terms of brownfields Redevelopment uh but in general any Community or or organization can use this tool to analyze their own strengths and
assets areas that can use Improvement external opportunities to be utilized and any external threats that could impact a local brownfields project so a SWAT analysis can be used in so many different contexts it's especially common in business and marketing but it can also be super helpful in conversations on brand fields and Community engagement so SWAT analyses can be used to examine benefits and challenges within Redevelopment projects and create strategic plans based upon those findings and
you'll see here at the bottom is sort of how we lay out the SWAT and how we can visualize all of these things together who can use a SWAT analysis well anyone anyone can use a SWAT analysis um and when we're talking more specifically about brownfields Redevelopment any stakeholders or anyone involved in this process who wants a deeper Insight can benefit from using a SWAT analysis um more specifically though our SWAT analysis tool targets Municipal governments Regional planning commissions nonpr
ofits or any other public entity that's applying for brownfields Grants or leading any sort of Redevelopment efforts um people in these powerful positions can really benefit from this sort of intentional awareness and understanding of their communities so just putting time towards completing a SWAT analysis um can really make a big difference and then a SWAT analysis can also be completed collaboratively is part of a public meeting or in a focus group and this is a great way to not only inform t
he community but also meaningfully meaningfully engage with them incorporate their input and their voices and listen to their experience Es as well so when should a SWAT analysis be utilized um a SWAT analysis can be useful at any point we actually got a question at another presentation we were giving last week someone asked if tabs engagement and Outreach Services um were only for communities applying for the cleanup Grant or in the cleanup and Redevelopment part of the process um but so we wan
t to clarify that Community engagement including a SWAT analysis is actually going to be more effective and more sustainable the earlier that it begins um there's no way that completing a SWAT analysis is going to bring about any negative impacts like the slide says gaining a stronger understanding of your community and your specific project um will only help you and I do see your question Kathleen what's you can unmute if you want I don't have a question sorry I'm late oh no that's okay that's
all good I do it all the time um so yes gaining a stronger understanding of your community and your specific project will only help you and prevent obstacles down the road um and it will also allow you to build and cultivate authentic connections and Partnerships with your community members so all that to say you can complete a SWAT analysis anytime but the earlier the better and I do see some people trickling in I just want to remind everybody that this is recorded So if you miss the first bit
that's totally fine and you'll have access to it at a later point so just to put all of this into perspective a bit here are some Roundfield specific situations where a SWAT analysis can be really helpful so firstly exploring different options for reuse and Redevelopment looking into strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats is a great way to narrow down on different ideas and possibilities when it comes to Redevelopment of a local Brownfield site um and then kind of in that same Arena SWAT
can also be used to analyze your organization or your community as a whole in order to get a better sense of capacity any possible stakeholders or Partners different scenarios or threats to look out for and what strengths you can capitalize on as you take on a brownfields Redevelopment project which I'm sure we all know can be a pretty big endeavor then earlier on in the process a SWAT is a great tool to be used collaboratively for community visioning community need um or goal setting and then
a SWAT can also be used in a pinch if for some reason your plans need to be adjusted changed modified or refined at all um so I'm going to pass to Jocelyn to talk a little bit more about strengths weaknesses threats and opportunities thank you Katie um so yeah we'll just go right down in order um in that line uh starting first with strengths strengths can really be defined as people and resources within your community or your organization that can internally uplift and support your Redevelopment
project this can include things like having really strong Community organizations having shared ideals having access to volunteers or having used successful Community engagement tactics from the past um a key detail I want to note for strengths and for weaknesses in a moment is that um these are really going to be internal to whatever your frame of reference is or the point of view that you are looking at um so for example if you're focusing a lot more broadly on your community as a whole like
your entire Geographic Community your strengths I just want to pause and ask everyone to mute their mics too just because we're getting a little feedback um but uh so if you're focusing more broadly like on an entire Geographic Community the strikes that you identify will likely be a lot more broad like having a lot of environmental justice nonprofits located in your town um whereas if your uh frame of focus is more narrow you're likely going to have a lot more narrow um strengths listed so if y
ou're focusing within a nonprofit or Community organization a strengths may look like um having a lot of financial resources on your team so you really will vary in the scope of what your strengths may look like depending on what you're focusing on um questions that you could use to help identify strengths include what are important Assets in your community in regards to brownfields Redevelopment what unique resources exist within your organization that you can utilize for your project and also
what engagement strategies that you've worked on and that you've used in the past and that were successful switching now to weaknesses um these can be defined as again internal limitations that could prevent a brownfields Redevelopment project from occurring or from being successful um examples of this oftentimes may look like the reverse of what your strengths are so limited Financial Resources lack of transparency and information sharing uh lack of organizational capacity or even issues with t
he uh red vment site itself um again these are really going to vary depending on how broad or how narrow your focus is for your frame of reference so um if you're looking at a nonprofit or Community organization um lacking certain Community or organizational values or certain missions May stand out as a weakness versus if you are looking at a geographic Community it could look a lot more at like wealth within your community and things like that um and then questions that can help you to identify
weaknesses could include does your Redevelopment Vision have areas for improvement um are there any weaknesses within your organization that could create barriers to your Redevelopment effort or are there certain groups in your community that have been excluded from past engagement initiatives and now Switching gears a little bit as we look at opportunities and threats we're going to switch um kind of what point of view is here whereas before we were looking internal to what your community or y
our organization possesses now we're going to look to what it has available to itself outside of the scope of that that team um so for opportunities this could be defined as positive external factors that communities or organizations can take advantage of to ensure the success of your Redevelopment project so this could look like funding sources having really strong Community interest in your project and even being able to utilize media and social media to advertise your project questions here t
hat could help you to identify opportunities could include are there any opportunities for expanding your community engagement how will your Redevelopment project meet the needs of your community or how can you turn your community strengths that you had identified in one of the previous um parts that we looked at how can you turn those into opportunities um I did want to kind of make a connection here to Yukon tab's stakeholder analysis tool which we did previously in another webinar and is avai
lable on Yukon tab's website to review um the uh stakeholder analysis kind of allows you to look at interest and Power in all of the different stakeholders in your community that could have some sort of say in your Redevelopment project and for opportunities you could refer back to that tool and look at the people who have a high amount of interest and a high amount of power because they may represent really strong opportunities for your project and then lastly for threats uh these can be define
d as negative external factors that have the potential to adversely affect your brownfields Redevelopment project this could include push back or opposition from community members organizations even elected and appointed officials within your town who have a significant amount of power and have a certain stance on the project this could also include legislative changes and language barriers in your community questions that can be used to help identify threats could include what threats could you
r community or what what threats could harm your community or your Redevelopment Vision are there any competing or opposing ideas for the project like what to use the site for and do your community weaknesses that you identified earlier present any threats to your project and again linking it back to the stakeholder analysis tool you could consider the people and the entities who have less power and less interest in your project as being potential areas where there could be threats to the succes
s of your project thank you so much Jocelyn so I'm going to turn it right back to her but before I do I just wanted to kind of wrap up this more conceptual part of our webinar together with uh short conversation on why a SWAT analysis is such a valuable tool in brownfields Redevelopment so firstly using a SWAT analysis helps to identify and build upon straints like we've been talking about um and we can do this in the context of a Redevelopment project a community engagement initiative your own
your own organization or municipality it can be used for a lot of different things um and it's really whatever makes sense for you and tab is also happy to help kind of walk through this process with you um coming from a social work background Joselyn and I see a lot of value and importance in a strength spaced approach um and helping Community find and work with the assets that they already have um kind of on the opposite side of that coin a SWAT also provides a better understanding of a Projec
t's weaknesses and any threats that may exist so if you complete a SWAT early on in the Redevelopment process it will grant you with more time to meaningfully address concerns and than any other obstacles barriers or challenges that may arise then as we've mentioned a bit before and just want to emphasize a SWAT analysis can be a GameChanger when it comes to honing in on a shared Community Vision SWAT can provide a lot of clarity and collaboration when it comes to decision making and it's a grea
t tried and true tool for strategic planning then finally of course we want to bring the focus back to community engagement conducting a SWAT analysis um can really provide a much deeper understanding of your community it can be used collaboratively to Foster community building and building trust and it's a great way to get the community involved and and remind them that they are a part of this process um it also helps us stay strength based and solution oriented while acknowledging weaknesses a
nd preparing for any threats um so overall there's so much that can be done with a SWAT analysis um and if the of interest to you um you know definitely reach out we'll have our contact information up at the end of the presentation um and we'll also have any time for questions or comments at the end uh but to conclude I'm going to turn it over to Joselyn for our case study thank you yes so as Katie mentioned I'm going to be kind of going through a really brief hypothetical case study on chesher
Connecticut it is my hometown so I have a lot of connections and a lot of of knowledge about kind of what has gone on within the community um and basing this Loosely off of a brownfields Redevelopment project that has gone on and has started in Cheshire um so I'll just read off our little bio here um chesher Connecticut is a mediumsized Suburban town with a population of about 29,000 people approximately 85% identify as white 8 and a 12% as Asian 6.1% as black or africanamerican 5.2% as Hispanic
or Latino and 1.2% as American Indian or Alaskan native the median household income in Cheshire is around $122,000 a year in one of cheshire's historic districts there's a former button factory that has been deemed a Brownfield site because of the presence of asbestos lead paint and some other hazardous materials after a local nonprofit received EPA funds for the assessment and clean up at this site plans to remediate it and uh repurpose it into a local arts and Community Enrichment Center have
been considered many of the community members appear to be in favor of this plan so far but comprehensive public opinion has not been gathered yet all right so one by one I'm just going to walk through each of the four squares um starting in the same order that I walked through the steps before um I do want to point out as I mentioned earlier when I was talking about the difference between strengths and weaknesses in terms of what your lens is um for my strengths and weaknesses my area of focus
is really going to be on this nonprofit that is really leading this project team for this Redevelopment purpose so the strengths and the weaknesses are all going to be things that I have identified as kind of living within that team and the opportunities and threats are going to be factors that lay outside of it um and I'd be happy to go through this more if there are questions at the end if anyone has questions about differentiating between the two of those I'd be happy to get into that more u
m so starting with strengths uh with this team I've identified that a lot of them really have a strong sense of connection to the community and really have strong values about living in a like having that small town identity of living in a small suburban Town um in addition to this the team does have a fair amount of financial resources available to them as people who mainly live middle to upper middle class um and there's a fairly large team that is working on this project I believe that the no
nprofit has about 20 to 30 people at least on their team um so all of this together I think this helps to create a really strong will and capacity to be able to sustain the work on this project long term um flipping that a little bit looking at weaknesses because a lot of the people who are on this project team work full-time jobs many many of them are working with other nonprofits in town and are working on other Town Projects they many of them have limited time because they this is sort of the
ir thing that's on the side um so the lack of time that a lot of people bring could potentially pose a weakness for sustaining long-term work on the project um something that I identified as well is that there's a lack of a racial and ethnic diversity on this project team so as I mentioned in the last slide chesher is about 85% white and then there are smaller proportions of racial and ethnic minorities living in town for the most part though almost every person on this project team identifies a
s white um and there's not a lot of representation of those racial ethnic minorities on the team so without really strong Community collaboration and Partnerships I think there is the potential for there to be a lack of equity and inclusion worked into a site in a project that is meant to Center the Arts and Community enrichment and I think that could pose um limits to what the team is able to do to really make this a project that serves everybody in the community um moving on to Opportunities a
nd threats so kind of switching outside of the focus of the nonprofit team um there are many environmentally focused nonprofits that are based in chesher um so I think that that creates a source of a lot of Partnerships and a lot of support from other groups who are doing similar work for this brownfields Redevelopment project and I think that that really helps to increase the potential for this Project's success within the town um there are also several very supportive Town Council Members in c
heshire's local government um who are who have expressed their support for the project so far many of the people on cheser Town Council are involved in many of these environmentally focused nonprofits as well so I think that helps to bring in a level of political power and will um where people can advocate for this project moving forward on the governmental level and I think that this is a especially important when you consider that sometimes Town Council Members act as Liaisons or they serve on
Town commissions and committees like a planning and zoning committee for example which often are very instrumental and helping to see that the projects come to light and are the deciding factors in whether they can move forward or not um and then lastly just looking at General attitudes about environmentalism environmental Consciousness I think that these recently have grown a lot more positive and open to what like brownfields are for example and why it's important to redevelop them and what i
t can bring and build and nourish for the community um I think that this has happened on the local level in ches pressure but I think more globally and nationally too I think that we've seen this grow a little bit um so I think on many levels that creates a lot of opportunities that would welcome a project like this in town um now switching lastly to threats and kind of staying on the idea of General attitudes in the community Cheshire like a lot of small towns uh like many towns I would argue i
s fairly politically divided so if there are groups in town who are opposed to seeing an arts and Community enrichment project pop up they are likely I think to be pretty vocal and pretty active about expressing their um disinterest in the project uh and this obviously could pose some threats to the success of it moving forward um and then looking at kind of the wealth that chesher holds in comparison to other towns I think this uh poses a threat to them accessing Financial Resources especially
things like environmental justice grants because Cheshire does not have a great amount of demonstrated environmental Injustice um and that kind of mixed with the inflation that has been driving up a lot of costs for materials and labor I think that both of those things can really pose some Financial strain for this project um and could potentially limit its success if they don't have access to the money to really make it happen great thank you so much for that case study Jocelyn it always helps
to put things into perspective in that way and watch how it's done and and watch what it looks like when it's or see what it looks like when it's completed so um we are going to open it up for questions now um I'm going to leave my contact information up here um and also this is a QR code for any uh feedback you may have on this webinar um we can't send this out after the fact so if you do have any feedback make sure to scan it now and fill it out now or whenever is convenient for you um like I
said Joselyn and I are going to stay on for any questions any comments any conversation you may want to have in these last few minutes but if not um thank you so much to Jocelyn for being a great Crow presenter um and thank you everyone for joining us today uh the recording of This will be posted uh hopefully this week on our YouTube channel um and on our website so yeah thank you so much and I hope you have a great rest of your day I'm G to stop recording now and feel free to ask any questions
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