Redlands Christian Migrant Association (RCMA)

RCMA provides quality child care and early education for children of migrant farm workers and rural, low-income families throughout Florida. RCMA was founded Oct. 1, 1965, by Mennonite Church volunteers in the Redlands farming area of southern Miami-Dade County to provide a safe, nurturing environment for children while their parents worked in the fields.

From three centers with approximately 75 children in the Homestead and Florida City area, RCMA today serves nearly 8,000 children in over 75 centers, including two charter schools, in 21 Florida counties. More than 2,000 children are on waiting lists. As the largest non-profit child-care provider in Florida, RCMA is a leader in high-quality early childhood services; more than half of RCMA's child-care centers are nationally accredited.

As a non-sectarian association, RCMA is built on principles of incorporating the family into child development, healthcare and educational activities and hiring and training staff from the communities served. This provides security for the parents, knowing their cultures are respected, while their children are being prepared to enter school. For the children, this provides both the strength of their ethnic origins and the Anglo society that they are being prepared to enter.

To facilitate its organizational missions and goals, RCMA's information technology group has been very strategic and instrumental to get its information infrastructure well organized. As one of the most respected information technology leaders in the country's Head Start community, RCMA has often sought out by other Head Start organizations for advices and strategies in IT planning, deployment and maintenance.

"RCMA has been using PROMIS in many areas, which include attendance tracking, immunization tracking and tracking services to families. We have made leaps and bounds in the area of tracking staff training and education." Said Mr. Ed Dickerson, Director for Information Technology at RCMA, we have implemented the process of using PROMIS to track our DCF requirements for maintaining our license."

PROMIS' comprehensive capability and its industrial strength are the key attributes for RCMA's decision choosing PROMIS back in 2004. "We like PROMIS because it helps basically have one-stop tracking; our real challenge is ensuring we have a good training plan for basic computer skills. We used HSFIS in the past and we love PROMIS because of using the Web vice having to send downloads or access via a network," Said Mr. Dickerson.

Cleverex and RCMA have been closely working together in collaboration to facilitate RCMA's continued success in serving children and their families.