EMASS Program
Mission and Goal
The Elder Multicultural Access and
Support Services (EMASS) Program
supports the County of San Diego’s
Older Adult System of Care Framework
in improving a person’s quality of life.
EMASS establishes service delivery
designs that support effective, high
quality, culturally competent,
linguistically appropriate, prevention and
early intervention; and recovery
oriented services for older adults.
EMASS Program’s mission is to provide
mental health promotion, education and
prevention, and wellness activities to
increase community awareness about
mental health issues and resources
available for older adults.
Its goal is to dispel myths and stigmas
commonly associated with accessing the
public mental health system by older
adults and establish collaboration and
partnership with community and faithbased organizations to address
discrimination issues e.g. ageism, racial/
ethnic prejudice and the stigma of
mental illness using Promotoras Model of
Latin American social intervention.
In Partnership with:
Elder Multicultural
Access & Support
Services (EMASS)
EMASS
EMASS Program
3539 College Avenue
San Diego, CA 920115
North County: 619-481-2645
East County: 619-481-2644
EMASS
Funded by the County of San Diego
Behavioral Health Services
Elder Multicultural Access & Support Services (EMASS) Program
EMASS Services
EMASS East County
County Wide
EMASS through its outreach staff, trained as
Promotoras
EMASS has been servicing the San Diego
County since 2009 identifying and engaging
seniors 60 years and older from Latino, African
American, Asian, Pacific Islander, Filipino, East
African, and Middle Eastern communities.
• We are a contracted program through the
San Diego Behavioral Health Services (BHS)
Prevention Early Intervention (PEI) to enable
timely identification of mental health issues and
their prevention; reduce inappropriate
utilization of hospital emergency rooms (ER)
and inpatient hospital admissions, enhance
timely access and engagement to need mental
and physical health services, enhanced resource
utilization, service capacity and improve quality
of care by providing culturally and linguistically
effective services to seniors.
Care Coordination
or
Community
Health
Workers
(CHWs), offers a variety of individual and group
educational opportunities. The goal is to strengthen
seniors’ capacity to remain independent and improve
the quality of their lives by providing:
Our work includes funding from the Office of
Immigrant and Refugee Affairs to identify 60 year old
older adult refugees of East African and Middle
Eastern senior refugees, asylees, Iraqi and Afghan
senior immigrants who possess Special Immigrant
Visas (SIVs). Our purpose is to serve to mainstream
social and mental health services and resources.
Assess and refer participants in need of outreach,
information, counseling, social adjustment classes as
well as connection to citizenship classes, socialization
and networking. Our services are geared to prevent
mental health challenges and we engage seniors
offering community education, physical activity
opportunities, strategies to decrease isolation, reduce
feelings of anger, stress, anxiety and depressive
symptoms as well as connection to mental health
navigation, health literacy, and wellness education.
 Appropriate referral information on
community mental health social services, selfhelp tools, housing, employment services,
healthcare, and County operated/contracted
or private services;
 Screening of seniors for eligibility of
benefits and to assist them with
enrolment, and securing, federal, state, and
private benefit programs e.g. healthcare,
affordable housing, education and energy
assistance;
 Senior Peer Counseling, support and
education on how to navigate the health
care system;
 Community structured and semi structured
site based social and recreational
activities; and
 Transportation coordination.