Every entry on DA Form 5761-1-R exists because a record system needs it in writing. The form's official title is FAMILY CHILD CARE (FCC) RISK ASSESSMENT TOOL OBSERVATION SUMMARY, and it is raised whenever an office must family child care risk assessment tool observation summary (lra) in a way that survives the departure of everyone involved. Memory does not transfer between assignments; a filed document does. The edition dated July 1989, status not stated, is what stands here, spread across 2 page(s) and about 200 fields — a count that reflects how much detail the receiving system requires, not how much the drafter wishes to give.
Behind any Army form sit two separate decisions. What the document asks is settled by ACSIM, which maintains and revises it. Whether you raise it, and where it goes once signed, is settled by AR 608-10. That division is the reason a form can outlive several changes in the process it serves.
Identification precedes substance for a structural reason. Name, identification number, organisation and date of preparation are how the finished document is located in a file or a database; the body of the form is what someone reads after the search has succeeded. Spell the name as official records spell it, since the search runs against those records and not against habit.
Much of the form's behaviour follows from its being a fixed page. Tab order was set at build time along the reading sequence, which is why tabbing catches boxes a pointer passes over. Exclusive groups release one choice when another is made because a record cannot carry two answers to a single question. Single-line fields refuse to wrap because every entry must print where the layout expects it — text beyond the width is lost at the margin, visible on screen to the end. That is what remarks areas and continuation sheets are for. Marking a field that does not apply matters for a related reason: emptiness is ambiguous, and a reviewer reading the file later cannot distinguish an omission from a decision.
A signature is what converts entries into a record, which is why it comes last and why an unsigned form remains a draft however complete it looks. Where a reviewing official, an approving authority or a witness also signs, each adds a distinct attestation, and each dates the day of signing rather than the day of preparation — the dates trace the sequence of responsibility. The recurring defects are worth knowing precisely because they defeat that purpose: an empty mandatory field leaves an obligation unmet, transposed identification digits attach the record to nobody, a date with day and month reversed puts events in the wrong order, and entries left in a reused working copy assert facts nobody intended.
The Privacy Act statement is on the page because collecting personal information requires the collector to disclose the terms first — the authority relied on, the purpose, the routine uses, and whether an answer is required or may be withheld. That order is the point: the statement is read before the entries it governs, since consent given afterwards is not consent. Once completed, the copy is a personal record and carries the handling obligations that attach to one.
Download the form
The published formats — PDF, XFDL — reflect the range of places a form gets filled in. Where there is a computer, the fillable pdf supplies live fields that keep entries positioned and readable. Where there is not, the printable pdf gives the identical page as flat artwork for pen entry. The distinction is one of setting rather than of authority; the page is the same document in both.
Where a file opens matters more than it appears to. A browser will display a pdf, but browser viewers were built to read documents, and some accept keystrokes into fields they never intended to store — the entries are gone at tab close, without warning, because saving was never part of what that viewer does. A dedicated reader is built around the file's own structure and keeps what you enter. The xfdl file belongs to a different lineage entirely: IBM Lotus Forms, adopted across Army systems for the routing and signature handling built into it. That is why only the Lotus Forms Viewer reads it.
No charge and no account apply: these are published documents, and access to them is not something a distributor is entitled to price.
What the form asks for
- COMMENTS
- ContentArea1
- FCCSIGNDTE
- FCC_NAME
- NAME
- Page1
- Page2
- R155
- R156
- R157
- R158
- R159
- R160
- R161
- R162
- R163
- R164
- R165
- R179
- R180
- R181
- R182
- R183
- R184
Disposition is prescribed, not chosen. AR 608-10 names the destination, whether that is a specific office, the unit administrative channel or the personal record, and the applicable records schedule governs how long it survives there. Both rules exist to keep the file consistent across offices with different habits. Take your copy before the document leaves, since it will not come back.
Forms cluster by series and number for the same reason files do: shared proponency and a shared prescribing directive usually mean a shared process. So a document in the DA series referenced on the face of another is generally part of the same transaction, and continuation sheets, cover sheets and transmittals belong to the package from the outset rather than arriving after a query.
Revision follows the process, which is why editions appear without a fixed interval, and the printed date rather than any version number identifies them. Nothing on a stored copy signals that it has aged; the check is manual. Work already completed under a superseded edition stands as filed, because the record was made under those terms and is properly interpreted under them.
One boundary should be stated clearly. What is distributed here are copies of published Department of the Army forms; the site is independent, issues nothing of its own, and holds no position in the system it describes. Proponency, prescribing directives and retention schedules operate without reference to it. Consequently nothing here is legal advice and no assurance about acceptance is possible. Questions about a particular entry, a requirement or eligibility belong with ACSIM or your servicing administrative office.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 5761-1-R?
- FAMILY CHILD CARE (FCC) RISK ASSESSMENT TOOL OBSERVATION SUMMARY
- Which edition is current?
- July 1989
- Who is responsible for this form?
- ACSIM
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL