How to Fill Out the Army Family Care Plan: DA Form 5305

To fill out DA Form 5305, the Army Family Care Plan, you complete the four parts of the form itself — your identifying information, your caregiver designations, a dual-military section if it applies, and the soldier and commander certification block — then attach the supporting documents that make those designations legally real. The form is the cover sheet for a packet, and your commander’s signature in Part IV is what turns it into an approved plan. Everything else in the process exists to make that signature possible.

When You Need to Complete This Form

AR 600-20 requires a Family Care Plan from single parents with custody of a family member under 18, dual-military couples with custody of a family member under 19, sole caregivers of dependent adults, and pregnant soldiers who are single, separated, or married to another service member.¹ The requirement applies across Active Duty, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve, regardless of rank.

One boundary worth stating up front: the plan is not a legal instrument that overrides a custody order. If a court order is in effect, your caregiver designations on DA Form 5305 have to match it. Name someone other than the child’s other biological parent as guardian when the order says otherwise and your commander cannot approve the plan. Talk to your installation’s Legal Assistance Office before you start filling anything in.²

Gather the Packet Before You Fill In the Form

Filling in DA Form 5305 without the supporting documents in hand is how plans get rejected. Part I of the form has checkboxes confirming that specific attachments are included; if you check them without the paperwork actually attached and properly signed, your commander will send it back.

DA Form 5304, the Family Care Plan Counseling Checklist. You and your commander (or their designated representative) initial each line during a counseling session, confirming you understand what the plan requires and what happens if you don’t maintain one.³
DA Form 5840, Certificate of Acceptance as Guardian or Escort. Each person you name — temporary guardian, long-term guardian, and escort if applicable — signs one. It must be notarized, and the guardian must sign in the notary’s presence. A signature written before the notary appointment voids the form.⁴
DA Form 5841, the special power of attorney authorizing your caregiver to make medical, educational, and welfare decisions for your children. An equivalent civilian power of attorney is acceptable, but most soldiers use DA Form 5841 because installation Legal Assistance offices prepare and notarize it at no cost.⁵
DD Form 1172, DEERS enrollment, signed for each family member, so the caregiver can obtain or renew military IDs while you’re away.⁶
DD Form 2558 for a military allotment, or documented proof of automatic bank transfers if you’d rather send support that way.²
Letters of Instruction to each caregiver covering medical needs, school routines, religious practices, emergency contacts, and anything else specific to your family.
Copies of any custody orders or separation agreements currently in effect.

Working Through the Four Parts of DA Form 5305

A blank copy is available from the Army Publishing Directorate at armypubs.army.mil.⁷ The form is broken into four parts, and each has a specific job.

Part I: Your Information and Caregiver Designations

Enter your full name, phone number, email, and complete address including ZIP+4. Then designate three caregivers.

The temporary (short-term) guardian is someone local who can take your dependents within hours during an alert or short-notice duty. Pick someone close enough to reach your children the same day, not someone across the country.

The principal (long-term) guardian is who takes over during an extended deployment. AR 600-20 requires this guardian to live in the continental United States or U.S. territories.

The escort applies only if you’re stationed OCONUS. This is the person who will accompany your dependents back to the long-term guardian’s location in an evacuation.

Fort Carson’s guidance is direct on caregiver choice: your guardian should not be another service member who could be deployed or mobilized.⁶ Naming a fellow soldier or a Guard member from your unit builds in the failure mode you’re trying to avoid. Have a real conversation with anyone you list before you write their name down. They will need to appear in front of a notary to sign DA Form 5840, so logistics matter too.

Part I also has checkboxes for the attachments. Check a box only when the corresponding document is signed, notarized where required, and physically in the packet.

Part III: Dual-Military Couples

If your spouse is also a service member (any branch), they enter their identifying information and sign this section. Both spouses’ commanders have to validate the plan, so coordinate early. Waiting for one command to sign off before starting with the other stretches the timeline unnecessarily.

Part IV: Certification

You sign and date the bottom of the form. Your commander then reviews the whole packet and, if satisfied, signs and dates the certification block. That commander signature is what makes the plan valid. Until it’s on the form, there is no approved Family Care Plan.

Financial Support and Transportation on the Form

The form asks how the caregiver will be funded and how your dependents will physically get to them. Vague answers get plans rejected. For funding, the standard is a military allotment set up through DD Form 2558, routing part of your pay to the caregiver’s account each month. If you use automatic bank transfers or another method, attach bank statements showing the transfers are already active and recurring.

For transportation, describe specifically how your dependents get from home (or the temporary guardian’s location) to the long-term guardian’s location.⁸ Say who pays, whether it’s a flight or a drive, who accompanies the children, how quickly the transfer can happen, and what the backup plan is. Commanders reject plans that read “my mom will figure it out.”

The Power of Attorney Duration

DA Form 5841 has a blank for an expiration date. The form allows a delegation period of up to six months for stateside assignments and up to twelve months if you’re serving outside the United States.⁵ If you are classified as missing, missing in action, or a prisoner of war within sixty days of the expiration date, the power of attorney stays in effect until sixty days after you return to U.S. military control.

Set the expiration well past your expected return, and plan to execute a new one at annual recertification if the dates are running close. Legal Assistance handles these at no cost.

Submission Deadline After Counseling

Your DA Form 4856 counseling starts the clock. From the date of that session:

Active duty soldiers have 30 days to complete DA Form 5305 and all attachments and get them approved.
Army National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers have 60 days.

Commanders can grant extensions up to 60 days total for active duty and 90 days total for Reserve and Guard, but only for a documented reason such as waiting on a notarized form from an out-of-state guardian.¹ Once approved, the packet is filed in your unit personnel records so it can be pulled during a mobilization.

Keeping the Plan Valid

Recertify at least once a year during your birth month. Confirm every piece of information is still accurate and every legal document is still in force, then initial and date DA Form 5305. Your commander signs again as well.¹

Some events force an update outside that annual cycle:

Marriage, divorce, or legal separation
Death or incapacity of a designated caregiver
A new or modified custody order
PCS to a new duty station, since your local short-term guardian usually won’t work from the new location
Mobilization, deployment, or pre-deployment processing

If a spot check or pre-deployment review finds your plan invalid, you have 30 days (active duty) or 60 days (Guard and Reserve) to fix it.¹

If You Don’t Maintain a Valid Plan

DA Form 5304 carries a warning that soldiers initial during counseling: failure to maintain a Family Care Plan can result in separation, administrative action, or disciplinary action under the UCMJ.³ DA Form 5305 itself states that being unavailable for worldwide assignment or unit deployment may lead to separation from the Army.⁹ For active duty soldiers, the separation mechanism is Chapter 5-8 of AR 635-200, which covers involuntary separation due to parenthood.¹⁰ A bar to reenlistment is a common intermediate step. For Reserve and Guard soldiers, separation authority runs through AR 135-178. Treat every signature, every notary appointment, and every expiration date on this packet as a career document.

1
U.S. Army. AR 600-20 Army Command Policy – Section: 5-3 Family Care Plans
2
U.S. Army. Family Care Plan Guide
3
U.S. Army Japan. DA Form 5304 Family Care Plan Counseling Checklist
4
Army MWR. Family Care Plan Packet
5
Mississippi National Guard. DA Form 5841-R Power of Attorney
6
U.S. Army Garrison Fort Carson. Family Care Plan
7
U.S. Army Japan. DA Form 5305
8
The United States Army. FCP
9
United States Marine Corps. Army DA Form 5305 Family Care Plan
10
U.S. Army. What You Should Know About Chapter 5 AR 635-200