You have arrived looking for DD Form 2636. Before you download, confirm this is the right document: Child Development Program, Department of Defense Certificate to Operate the (Stocked & Issued by OUSD(P&R)). Full title: Child Development Program, Department of Defense Certificate to Operate the (Stocked & Issued by OUSD(P&R)).
Next, check the edition. You want not stated, currently carried as not stated by the publisher. Then confirm the form applies to you — this is a Department of Defense form, so you use it whether you serve in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force or Coast Guard under Defense jurisdiction.
Once you know the form fits, find out when you file it. not stated sets the requirement, and not stated maintains the form itself. Your own command or agency adds local timing on top of that, so ask your administrative office if the deadline matters to you.
Finally, decide how you will complete it. You can type into a fillable file or print a blank and write by hand, and the rest of this page walks you through both paths in order.
Begin at the top and move down. Enter your identifying data first, then the body of the form, then the signature block. The sequence is printed in that order because entries below frequently follow from entries above.
Before your first entry, look at the corner of the page and compare the printed date with not stated. If they do not match, stop and download again. Old copies circulate in shared drives for years, and a DD form is revised centrally for every service at once, so a superseded blank may not carry the fields your reviewer expects.
Take the fields in order and answer all of them. Mark inapplicable items N/A instead of leaving white space. When you reach a date, copy the format shown on the form, since a reviewer reading a different convention may misread your entry entirely.
When you reach a Privacy Act Statement, read it before you continue. It tells you the legal authority for collecting your information, what the Department does with it, who else may see it, and whether you have to answer at all. That last point is worth knowing before you supply personal identifiers, not after.
Sign only after every other entry is complete. Use ink on a printed copy, or a credentialed digital signature — CAC-based, in a reader that handles it — on an electronic one. A typed name satisfies neither method. Enter the date next to it before you close the file.
Run a final pass over the form. The errors that send it back are the same ones every time: old edition, gaps in required fields, unreadable handwriting on a scan, non-conforming dates, no signature or no date.
If a particular field puzzles you, read the instructions printed on the form first, then go to not stated. When the two disagree, follow the directive.
Download the form
Begin by choosing a file. Available here: none published here. Plan for unknown pages and about unknown entries.
Choose pdf as your default. Next, click inside a box. A fillable pdf responds by outlining the field and letting you type; the text stays in the document when you save it. A printable pdf does not respond, which tells you to print the page and complete it by hand.
Go with the typed route whenever the choice is yours. Consider what happens after you submit: the copy gets scanned, forwarded and filed, and each pass costs handwriting some legibility. Block letters help if you are stuck with a pen.
Submit the completed form through the channel not stated or your local guidance specifies. Save a copy for yourself before it leaves your hands, whether that means a scan, a photograph or a duplicate file.
When DD Form 2636 references another form, search on the series and number. Because DD numbers are common to every military department, the number by itself identifies exactly one document.
Watch out for one trap here. If your instructions cite a DA form as well, do not assume the numbers are connected. DA numbering belongs to the Army alone; DD numbering belongs to the Department and is administered by not stated or another Department office. The same number in each system means two unrelated forms, so read the prefix before you download.
Do not archive this file and reuse it in a year. Forms are reissued as directives are revised, as data requirements shift, and as statutory notice text is amended. Your protection is simple: download fresh each time and confirm the edition date.
Finally, understand the limits of what you have read. This page distributes a published Department of Defense form and describes how to fill it out. It does not give legal or procedural advice, and it cannot promise any outcome for your particular case. For that, contact not stated, your administrative office, or the authority identified in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 2636?
- Child Development Program, Department of Defense Certificate to Operate the (Stocked & Issued by OUSD(P&R))
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- No file published here