Kate Welch is the owner and operator of Rainbow Swim Therapy, a business focused on supporting families through their individual swimming journeys.
Rainbow Swim Therapy caters for babies from six weeks to six months through its Bath Babies Program, with swimming programs available for babies from four months old. Lessons also cater for children and adults of all ages and NDIS participants, allowing people at different stages of life and with different needs to find an approach suited to them.
“I never imagined that I would be running my own business,” Kate said. “To me, that was only something that other people did.” But for Kate, teaching someone to swim has never simply been about getting from one end of the pool to the other. “It is always so much more, for so many different reasons and to so many different participants.”
Over the past decade, Kate says her work has taught her as much about herself as it has about swimming. “I have learnt so much about myself in this last 10 years, stuff that has surprised me, has amazed me, but most of all has taught me that we are only held back by our own beliefs.”
Becoming a mother strengthened that belief. Kate wanted her daughters to grow up knowing they could stand tall, be independent and self-sufficient, and believe in themselves regardless of what life put in their way.
In trying to teach her girls those lessons, Kate began learning some of them herself.
“To be a part of so many families with children of so many different backgrounds and abilities has taught me to be a better person,” she said. “It has taught me that I am capable and that I can do and be anything I want to be, and mostly it has taught me to be the best version of myself and the mother my girls need.”
Those experiences have helped shape the philosophy at the heart of Rainbow Swim Therapy, that every child, and every family, has their own journey.
Behind the little person standing at the edge of the pool is often a parent wondering whether their child is progressing, whether they should encourage them or give them more time, why they might be frightened of a particular skill, or simply whether they are doing the right thing.
Kate wants those parents to know they don’t have to work it out alone. She brings her experience as an aquatic educator to work towards creating a circle of trust and safety around the child, allowing progress to happen at a pace that is right for them.
And sometimes that progress doesn’t look the way we expect. “Sometimes the biggest swimming achievement isn’t swimming another metre,” Kate said. Sometimes it is the frightened child who finally puts their feet in the water. The child who decides, “I’ll try.” Or the parent watching their child achieve something they once wondered would ever be possible.
After a decade of building Rainbow Swim Therapy, Kate says she is beginning to see the rewards of the work she has put in, not simply through the business she has created, but in what she can now offer families who need a different approach. “And this makes me happy.”
For the woman who once thought owning a business was something “other people did”, perhaps there has been another lesson hidden amongst all those swimming lessons. Sometimes the person standing at the edge, wondering whether they are capable of taking the next step, isn’t always the child.
Rainbow Swim Therapy’s Term 4 program runs from 6 October to 12 December 2026. Reach out to Kate for more information, on 0414 334 887.
Published Chitchat Newspaper October 2026