Residents ‘Henthusiastic’ about HenPower

Residents and staff at our Bourke, Casino, Condobolin, Casino and Maclean residential care homes are quickly becoming ‘henthusiasts’, with the introduction of a new Creative Ageing program, HenPower.

HenPower is a fantastic program based around keeping chooks, creative activities and staying socially connected. HenPower has been running successfully in the UK for more than two years following a very successful trial of the program. The HenPower program was created by Equal Arts UK and Whiddon are thrilled to be the first aged care provider to trial the program in Australia.

HenPower brings older people together with staff, volunteers and community members through hen-keeping to build positive relationships, improve wellbeing and reduce loneliness. The program combines hen-keeping with a structured arts and crafts program and focuses on the benefits of animal therapy and social and creative activities.

The program is already showing great benefits at our Whiddon homes, with many of our residents getting out and about and spending more time outdoors. Residents are helping to feed the chooks, chatting about what their chooks have been up to and swapping stories about farm life and having chooks when they were younger, collecting eggs, joining in art activities like finger painting and paper mache, and are even bathing the spoilt chooks!