I am only called Katherine when I am in trouble with my mother...everyone else calls me Kat!
I have been working in Education as a teacher since May 2008, having completed a Bachelor of Art and Graduate Diploma of Education. During this time I have taught Primary (grades 3 to 6), Secondary (years 8-10) and worked in Adult Education (with a Cert4 in Training & Assessment) as an Area Rep & Trainer for Paedatric First Aid.
My whole life has been spent working with children, so when it came time to have my own, I thought I would slip easily into motherhood. How wrong I was!
Falling pregnant with my first child was not an easy path. I experienced many issues before becoming pregnant in 2014 and having my first child in 2015. After a smooth second pregnancy and calm birth, I welcomed bub no. 2 in 2017. Six weeks after the birth, I was a mess. I was confident that I knew what to expect the second time around and would have a smooth run. Again, how wrong I was. This confidence really bit me in the butt and I was totally unprepared for the challenge of juggling a baby and toddler simultaneously, especially a baby that gave me a whole new set of unfamiliar challenges.
Suddenly I found myself feeling reduced to nothing more than a milking-cow, existing solely to sustain the food source of an infant. A very new level of complete rock bottom which was a pretty dark place.
One person who saw me at my worst and held my hand along this ride is not only my best mate but now my business partner, the other half of Rise & Thrive. Two years ago, we sat by a pool on a girls weekend, chatting about how far we had both come, when we realised that there just wasn’t enough available to support mothers in a group setting, and particularly mothers with more than one child. It dawned on us that we had not only the respective skills - myself as a teacher and Jackie as a psychologist - but also the lived experience that we could draw on to help other mothers.
We are determined to ‘rise’ to the challenge to provide quality psycho-education to help mothers ‘thrive’.
Getting a business off the ground is not easy. But we decided that we could either never have a go because we feared failure, or accept that ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ and have a crack anyway - knowing from our research that there is a gap in services available.
We LOVE what we do and we are passionate about helping others. Our clients are able to build a relationship with us based on trust, honesty, respect, support, empathy and humour. Yes, you may cry in one of our workshops, but we will get a laugh out of you too! On behalf of Jackie and myself, we look forward to welcoming you to our seminars and workshops, hearing your story and guiding you to reconnect with who you are as a person, not just a mum!
Kat
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