I work in a behind the walls psychiatric unit. 40 beds acute (or in some cases longer term) and a 20 bed residential treatment unit that is a new (court ordered) endeavor.
part of my response would be to ask about what diagnoses you are working with. suicidal due to adjustment to a custody change (getting "lugged") or dear john letter or something along those lines or are you working with a more Axis I psychotic / manic / major depression sort of crowd.
I have a 6 session managing auditory hallucination group that was based on an article I read in 1999 or so
I also have a 6 session group based on Copeland's Wellness and Recovery Action Plan. I do sessions from the appendices to augment this as well as throwing a few other things.
On the acute side, a co worker and I did a morning check in sort of group daily using SMART (you can google that and find variations). We posted that in the group room that we met in. This group also served as a place that people could speak of their systems frustrations, get support and suggestions on how to manage.
Another coworker did a coping skills group using material and exercises from all over.
I used to do DBT and "correctionalized" most of what I did in terms of materials and also simplified some of the handouts as many of the guys didn't have the reading skills or tolerance to tackle some of this material.
an outside Buddhist (?) group had given something called the meditation guide for inmates - so when appropriate I have handed that out.
Marsha Linehan has some good CD's related to meditation and mindfulness. She can explain things much better than I.
a coworker of mine has an abbreviated list of DBT skills that she teaches. she has to time limit as she is the only clinician for 130+ female inmates.
I always explain to the patients where the materials originated from or how I came to develop the version we are doing. I would love some advice on how to handle potential problems for using the materials I use. I would not publish them nor pretend that they were my work so hopefully I am not doing something terrible.
I found a huge negative resistance to using materials that suggest things like meet a friend at the coffee shop or go for a drive etc. I have had people thank me for the materials being adjusted. my observation is that way too many inmates have learning problems and deficient coping and distracting skills. not to mention the other obvious issues of behavior management and impulsivity.
Another suggestion might be to visit whatever the closest short term psych unit in a general hospital. with managed care they usually are even more short term than you - see what they do for groups or program and see if any of it would work in your setting.
In a slightly longer term unit I would expect to see some sort of social skills group and some sort of mental illness awareness / management type group as part of the core groups
I hope this helps and feel free to contact me back channel. work email is dworster@nhdoc.state.nh.us
Deb (Worster) Green LICSW