Maureen Salinas
Founder/President
Maureen Salinas, LCSW is a licensed social worker who has spent years working with seniors in a dialysis clinic and then at Kaiser as the End of Life Options coordinator. She grew up watching her grandmother take care of her grandfather who had Parkinson’s disease, and her Nana take care of her Abuelo who had dementia and spent years on dialysis. In college, Maureen wrote her Senior Thesis about the difficulties of accessing resources for seniors and their caregivers, and in graduate school continued this line of research, studying differences in social support and resource utilization among family caregivers for people with Alzheimer’s disease. While working at the dialysis clinic and at Kaiser, Maureen came across many patients who, after spending their lives working, were now retired and on a fixed income and could
not afford basic necessities to remain safely in their homes. Things such as wheelchair or gurney transportation to life saving dialysis treatments or doctors appointments, and respite care for their caregivers so that they can take time for their own doctors appointments, are not covered by Medicare and come with very high price tags. These patients are directed to their social workers who have very limited resources to offer them. Maureen saw this need and lack of adequate resources within the Inland Empire, and decided to do something about it. Thinking of both her former patients and her grandparents, Maureen set out to start the Non-Profit Inland Empire Senior Support, to support seniors in the community with their unmet needs to optimize their social, emotional, and physical well-being, and to help them remain where they are most comfortable and have the best outcomes, at home. She was also inspired by her Nana when creating the logo for IESS, as her Nana often spoke about how watching the hummingbirds outside of her window gave her joy towards the end of her life, and she thought this animal was a good representation of hope. Maureen’s other grandmother also has had a lifelong love of hummingbirds, so it was simply meant to be.
