Commander Fleet Activities Sasebo  Military and Family Support Center

Your Military and Family Support Center provides relocation assistance to help make PCS moves as smooth as possible. Resources include:

• PCS planning: Most relocation assistance programs offer consultations to help you with the moving process. If this your first military move, your first time moving overseas or you have challenging or complex circumstances contact your installation Relocation Assistance Program as soon as possible for support.
• Plan My Move: An online Defense Department relocation tool that provides you with customizable checklists and links to helpful resources for the tasks ahead.
• Military OneSource: A website and call center that offer 24/7 support for moving information and resources. Learn more about PCS basics and download this fact sheet 7 Steps to Make Your Household Goods Move a Smart Move. For comprehensive moving resources and information, including Defense Personal Property log in details, visit Moving Your Personal Property.
• Workshops and briefings: Workshops vary by location. You may find classes on housing options, moving with children, moving with pets and more.
• Predeparture briefings: These sessions provide essential information about your move and may be required for some populations.
• Special needs: If you have a child or family member enrolled in the Exceptional Family Member Program, contact your installation EFMP-Family Support office to assist you.
• Settling-in services: Look for welcome programs or local area tours that may offered. Overseas services may include introductory language classes and cultural awareness activities.
• Foreign-born spouse support: Assistance includes information and referral to resources such as immigration and naturalization.
• Emergency assistance: Sometime emergencies occur while moving. The Military and Family Support Center has the resources to provide emergency financial assistance, as well as information and referrals.
• Authorized housing flexibility options: Eligible service members with PCS orders may be entitled to flexibilities such as extended stays in government housing and early housing eligibility. Contact your military personnel office for more information.
• Spouse licensure reimbursement: Your service branch may reimburse spouses up to $1,000 for relicensure and certification costs resulting from relocations or PCS moves. See this Military OneSource article Transferring Your Professional License for more information and specific service branch policies.

The Relocation Assistance Program is offered through the Fleet and Family Support Center just inside the Commander Fleet Activities Sasebo’s Main Gate, Building 310, and is standing by to assist you with any of your relocation issues or concerns.

All newcomers are required to attend Area Orientation Brief and Intercultural Relations, which is a week of half-day introductory programs running Monday-Friday. In order to qualify for a Status of Forces Agreement license, you must first provide a copy of your AOB/ICR certificate to the licensing agent. The base Driver's Safety course is conducted on Friday at the FFSC or the Safety Office.

Free child care is provided for the three days of this course. Contact the FFSC in advance to make child care arrangements.

While basic household goods are available to borrow, portable cribs, high chairs and infant and/or toddler car seats are not available at the Sasebo Loan Closet.

Installation Specific Information

Welcome to COMFLEACT Sasebo -- While your command-assigned sponsor is your first line of support for specific information and any questions prior to your arrival in Japan, allow your FFSC RAP specialist to assist you. Visit our Facebook page.

If you are outbound, check with the FFSC about dates and times for presentation of the Smooth Move permanent change of station workshop prior to your pack out from Japan. This workshop is beneficial in ensuring your move is as efficient and cost-effective as possible. Specifically, this single-session workshop offers a question-and-answer session, as well as tips to help make your move as painless as possible. Representatives from the Personnel Support Detachment, Personal Property, Housing and FFSC can answer all of your questions. Topics include shipping household goods, travel and financial planning, entitlements, family preparation and ways to reduce relocation stress. This workshop is open to all active duty, retiring, separating military personnel and their families. Call DSN 315-252-FFSC (3372) for more information and to enroll in the workshop.  

If your sponsor has not provided you with a Welcome Aboard Package, you can find additional information at the command's homepage. Additionally, you may connect with the FFSC by visiting the Fleet and Family Support Facebook page. Our Youth Sponsorship Program is available through Morale, Welfare and Recreation Sasebo. Call DSN 315-252-2989 for further information. The Youth Sponsorship Program depends on the availability of youth who volunteer to become sponsors.

Upon Arrival -- Most newcomers to Sasebo arrive at Fukuoka International Airport's domestic terminal after a brief flight from their initial Japan destination of either Tokyo's Narita or Osaka's Kansai airports. Fukuoka is about an hour and a half drive from the base at Sasebo. Public Works Transportation makes two trips to Fukuoka daily, carrying outgoing passengers to the airport and returning to the base with arriving passengers. These bus rides are free, with passengers providing the driver a copy of their orders and showing their identification cards to board the bus. The Sasebo Family Member Assistance Team operates out of the FFSC and has a sailor at Fukuoka to meet the last flights each day. FMAT representatives will position themselves immediately outside the baggage pick-up area of your Fukuoka arrival terminal. They will direct you to the bus and will accompany you on the bus ride departing the airport at 10:30 p.m. and arriving at the main gate of the base at approximately 11:50 p.m.

We recommend that sponsors meet incoming personnel at the base arrival point rather than ride the bus to Fukuoka, only because return seating is limited, with PCSing personnel on orders have priority.

After Arrival -- Make the FFSC your first stop. We are located next door to the post office near the Main Gate in Building 310. The FFSC has a broad range of free classes, programs and services that will help make your tour of duty in Japan as enjoyable as possible, from the day of your arrival through the day of your departure for your next duty adventure, or back into civilian life.

Orientation Briefings – Ideally, your sponsor has already enrolled you into the AOB and ICR class; if not, this is something you need to take care of right away by either visiting or calling the FFSC at 315-252-FFSC (3372). AOB/ICR is a three-day indoctrination class that all military members and civilian employees must attend. Family members are highly encouraged to attend, and will find it a requirement if they desire to obtain a driver’s license while living in Japan. A prerequisite for enrollment in the base driver’s course is completion of the AOB/ICR course. Children are not allowed in the AOB/ICR class, so child care must be arranged prior to the AOB/ICR class. Call the FFSC at 315-252-FFSC (3372).

Other immediate stops you need to make include the Housing Welcome Center, if you are accompanied and need to arrange for housing, and the Personnel Support Detachment to get a multiple-entry visa stamp in your passport, permitting you to depart and reenter Japan on leave, if necessary, during your tour. If you have children, you will need to visit the local Department of Defense Dependents Schools to handle their enrollment. Family members’ medical records need to be delivered to the Branch Health Clinic. Hopefully, your sponsor or another command representative is available to help you in accomplishing all of this; if they are not, we here at the FFSC are ready to assist you by explaining where you need to go and what you need to do.

Getting Connected -- Command Family Readiness Groups enhance Navy family life by providing social, informational, caretaking and morale-building activities. We offer family support as well, including an emphasis on activities during deployments, mentoring new family members and offering assistance in times of crisis. FRG assists with the command-sponsor program to include welcoming new families and facilitating family member attendance at orientation sessions.

Relocation Tips From Recent Newcomers

• Bring comfortable walking shoes to wear, along with dressier casual clothes. You are expected to dress conservatively when viewing rental homes or conducting other business with Japanese offices or agencies.
• Stock up on your favorite lingerie. Also, if you wear larger sizes of men's or women's clothing, you should bring extra clothing because they are not readily available locally.
• The selection of footwear for all family members is very limited, unless you wear small sizes and can purchase them on the local Japanese economy.
• Subscribe to your favorite catalogs. Mail order and internet retail sources can be a lifesaver. The FFSC also maintains a catalog library from which you may order hard-to-find and special-interest items.
• When you get to Japan, purchase telephone calling cards to make your calls back home. These ensure you don't talk too long and run up excessive phone bills, and their rates are usually better than prevailing long distance carrier rates.
• Japan has four seasons, so make sure to pack a full range of clothing items, making sure you have appropriate apparel in your accompanied baggage for the season you will be arriving in and living in until your express shipment arrives.
• Military members should carry all their uniforms with them. Even if it is winter in Japan, if you are shipboard, you may find yourself in the tropics shortly after your arrival.
• We recommend that ladies bring formal attire for special occasions. Local selections are limited and very expensive, when available on the local economy.
• Don't listen to doomsayers in the Navy Lodge or within your command. Take the time to evaluate things and develop your own opinions of what you like and what you don't like. Too many people find enjoyment in frightening newcomers with exaggerated stories or with their own fears.