This report presents model regulations to establish a program of adult protective services, which would facilitate the identification of high risk adults, and warrant delivery of life-sustaining services. The report reviews the personal and environmental circumstances which lead to jeopardy, including deinstitutionalization of the disabled, changes in the role of the family, and in those who become less self-reliant due to widowhood or increasing age and enfeeblement. Specific flaws in the existing adult protective services system, which limit or foreclose intervention in such cases, are examined, and elements essential to make an adult protective services statute truly responsible to the real life circumstances and deadlines it encounters, are outlined. The origins of the model from its inception in a committee on adult homes in the Nassau division of the National Association of Social Workers are noted, as well as the responses from other states. The model program describes organization in the local department of social services, responsibilities of the protective services program, charges and fees, reporting requirements and procedures, voluntary and involuntary provision of services, cooperation of other agencies, and annual reports. The appendix provides an illustration of the model process. (JAC)