SWOT Analysis

Also, you won ’t have to worry about teammates having the same ideas since they won ’t be able to write the same idea more than once. Try to rotate through the group at least 5 times or until you have at least 20 ideas on your page. That way, you will have several ideas to go through and several options to narrow down to.

As you are doing these activities, make sure the youth identify issues they are facing and not necessarily the solutions. Solutions will come later in the process. At the same time, don ’t restrict the youth. Tell them to write down an idea no matter how silly it seems. Every idea is a good idea in the brainstorming phase.

An idea that can seem unrealistic can be shaped and changed to be realistic. Don ’t stay silent! Speak up! It will help the whole team if everyone is sharing their thoughts. The more ideas you have, the better. When everyone is involved in brainstorming, a team comes up with more ideas than one person could have thought of alone.

Once you have identified all of the possible issues you could think of in your community, choose one, two, or even three ideas your youth team likes the most. With those ideas, you can use the SWOT activity to help you pick the right issue for your group to move forward with.

The SWOT Analysis helps youth identify the strengths and weaknesses of your youth community and can also be applied to your team itself. The results of the analysis can illuminate opportunities for the eventual solution identified by the youth team.

To do the SWOT activity, you will first need a solid idea of your issue or range of issues that the youth team would like to focus on.

Explanation of SWOT Analysis

A SWOT Analysis 4 will help your team determine how best to utilize the strengths and weaknesses of the community and how they align with the community ’ s needs.

The SWOT acronym describes the four main aspects of this activity:

S W O T trengths (of your community and youth team) eaknesses (of your community and youth team) pportunity (for your CNA) able (medium for analysis)

During this activity, the youth team will list strengths of the youth community and the CNA team, as well as the weaknesses of both. Following the instructions and using the table template provided below should help you to flesh out an issue affecting youth in the community.

Recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of your community is another core piece of CNAs and community engagement. Practicing this recognition can help find other needs that should be addressed in your community.

Leading this Activity

It may be a bit difficult at first to connect the dots between the boxes in the table below, so as the facilitator, you will need to guide them through their analysis. Don ’t tell them what to write or think, but ask them to compare strengths and weaknesses and also be prepared to share some ideas if they seem stuck or are struggling to get started. Make sure you also help them keep on track and record their ideas.

For example: If they list that their team strength is writing skills, their youth community strength is athletics, their team weakness is access to technology, and their community weakness is transportation to sporting events, it’d be difficult to make a connection between all of the areas. They don ’t really connect as a whole. However, you could identify that their team boxes are related, as well as their community boxes. Continuing on with either of those could help in determining an issue.

In this section, we will walk through an example of a SWOT Analysis and what the template might look like when the process is completed. As you can see in the template below, there are boxes for strengths, as well as for weaknesses (which you can also think of as areas for growth). There are also two boxes above and below the main table. You can use the first box if you already have an idea for an issue or range of issues. Then, in the bottom box, you can record a possible solution for an issue.

In the example used here, we will start with a hypothetical issue: “There is a lack of artistic opportunities and events for youth. ”

Therefore, we would write it in the top box, and save the bottom box for a solution idea.

Next, how do we identify strengths and weaknesses? First, let’ s look at what this might look like for community strengths and weaknesses.

Youth Community Strengths

While completing this box, you ’ll want to look at the advantages and strengths of the community, specifically the youth community as a whole.

These could be:

sports clubs extracurriculars your peers excel at awards received health factors traditions, etc. List the positive aspects of the youth community and what makes the youth proud of their peers. See the figure below of what this looks like filled in the template.

Recording these strengths will help your team recognize the areas you can pursue your solution in. By comparing these strengths to the next step (youth community weaknesses), you can also figure out the areas of your community that need assistance, with the knowledge of the assets available to your team.

Youth Community Weaknesses

The weaknesses of the community, or youth community, will be the areas where teens struggle. This may be considered an area that has the attention of public officials and adults. This step may require the youth to investigate and think outside the box since a significant youth issue may not be affecting the youth team directly. Think about the subjects that your school talks about a lot, such as safe driving, substance use, food security, etc. See the figure below of what this looks like filled in the template.

This conversation may be uncomfortable as there might be a youth issue they have experience with, but they don ’t want to talk about in front of their teammates. Make sure to prepare the youth team that this might be a difficult conversation and to treat each other with respect. Some topics are sensitive, and since we don ’t know the background of everyone we talk to, it is good to be respectful and sensitive to one another. If someone suggests an issue, encourage the youth not to immediately shoot it down or insult it. Instead, encourage the youth to practice kindness and thoughtfulness with one another during this step.

This step may be a direct parallel to the strengths the youth team came up with. Along the way, they may come up with ideas for the opposites or adjacent boxes when they complete a box. For example, with the previous step, if they determined that there is a community art fair, they may immediately recognize that there isn ’t any youth participation, and this would qualify as a community weakness.

Let’ s next look at what this might look like for team strengths.

Team Strengths

Have the youth team ask themselves what their own personal strengths are. You could discuss them out loud as a group and have the youth decide on traits that encapsulate the whole group, or have each person think individually and then share. Encourage the youth to think of traits that will be helpful for the CNA, such as artistic abilities, writing skills, organizational skills, leadership, etc. Encourage them to think outside of the box. See the figure below of what this looks like filled in the template.

Team Weaknesses

This step is more about figuring out areas for growth as a team that might make it harder to develop specific solutions. The point of this step isn ’t to make the team feel bad about themselves but rather to be realistic about the issue and determine a direction that will align

with the teams ’ abilities. Focus the conversation here on the weaknesses of the youth team as a whole.

For example, have the youth consider what they may be worried about when they think about the team or working as a team. If they are concerned that a particular aspect of the team will slow you down or prevent the teams ’ accomplishments, talking about it is essential. This will help the youth team figure out what they should be aware of as they address the identified issues or range of issues. See the figure below of what this looks like filled in the template.

Putting it all Together

In this example, the youth team could’ ve completed the table with or without the main idea of art and a lack of artistic opportunities for youth. By completing any of the boxes first, they could’ ve come to the same conclusion of developing an art-based solution. The figure below shows the complete template filled in.

You can go in any direction that your team feels is right: if you want to address the community ’ s weaknesses first and then establish the community ’ s strengths, go ahead. If you want to list the weaknesses and then work on the strengths, that’ s fine! The purpose of completing this table is to see the ideas written out and be able to make visual connections between the different areas. This will help the team examine the issue or range of issues indepth and get the youth team thinking of possible solutions. We have provided an empty table for your use at the end of this chapter, which you can print and use with your youth team.