As a step toward developing a standardized measure for evaluating the impact of child protective services, three indices were developed: the abuse index, the neglect index, and the sexual abuse index. Each is composed of physical indicators of the problem and social and behavioral indicators found to be statistically correlated with physical indicators. Adding and averaging the number of indicators found in a sample of cases before and after service delivery gives a measure of the impact of protective services (in other words, a protection score). Potential users of the system are provided in this manual with step-by-step information needed to use and adapt these protection indicators to measure the impact of child protective services. Sections of the manual provide background information related to impact evaluation, as well as guidelines for (1) designing an indicator/index evaluation, (2) training evaluators and pretesting the research, (3) using the existing indices, (4) constructing a new index, and (5) applying the indices. Indices are intended to be easy-to-use; evaluators can record the presence of indicators before and after service delivery as they read and review case records. Appended are the data collection instrument, formulas for all three indices, a list of indicators of abuse and neglect with operational definitions, and a list of program variables that can be used with the indicator/index approach. (RH)