Broadening the Youth Mental Health Ecosystem: A Case Study of DBG Detroit

COVID-19 has had an outsized impact on U.S. youth, especially youth of color attending high-poverty schools. This is largely because of differential resources across schools, which caused students attending high-poverty schools to experience more academic declines and socioemotional distress than students attending low-poverty schools. In response, many out-of-school-time youth-serving organizations (OST) expanded programming during and after COVID-19 to protect youth from the immediate and long-term effects of the pandemic, including learning loss, social isolation, and declining mental health. Despite this, OST remain under-recognized in the youth mental health ecosystem. This article aims to address that oversight by presenting a case study of Downtown Boxing Gym (DBG) Detroit, an OST that provides culturally responsive programming to youth ages 8 to 18 in Detroit, MI. When the pandemic began, DBG rapidly responded, continuing and building on their services with the intention of supporting the mental health, well-being, and success of their youth and families. Evidence suggests that during the pandemic DBG students experienced less learning loss than their peers and participated in increased socioemotional support. By sharing this case study, we aim to amplify the efforts of DBG, argue for greater attention to be paid, overall, to the essential role of OST in the youth mental health ecosystem, and provide recommendations for how other OST may respond in times of crisis.