Kia ora tātau katoa,
Ko tēnei te mihi ki te whenua e tū nei taku kāinga.
I tae mai ōku tūpuna i whenua kē, ā, ka noho ki ngā whenua taurikura o Taranaki me te Tairāwhiti.
I tae mai rātou i Yeteboll mā runga te kaipuke Helcione.
I tipu ake ahau i raro i te maunga o Rangitoto, ā, i te taha hoki o te moana o Hauraki.
Ko Michael Balcombe rāua ko Julia-Anne Butterworth ōku mātua.
I tipu ake ahau i Tāmaki Makaurau, engari, kei Pirimai ahau e noho ana ināianei.
Ko Kelly Forrest tōku hoa rangatira, nō Heretaunga ia.
Tokorima aku tamariki.
Ko Dana rātou ko Ashley, ko Shoanna, ko Rylee, ko Blue ō rātou ingoa.
Tokorua ngā mokopuna, ko Asha Balcombe rāua ko Torvi Balcombe ō rāua ingoa.
Ko Shoanna taku tamāhine whāngai, nō Te Aupouri ia.
E ngākaunui ana ahau ki te mahi i te taha o toku whānau.
Ko tōku whānau tōku ao.
Ko Bren Balcombe tōku ingoa.
He kaiwhakaora mauri ahau.
Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa
Kia ora..! greetings, from the Island Nation of Aotearoa/New Zealand. The Island I reside in is known as, Te Ika a Māui the fish of Māui. This originates from the ancestral story of Māui who pulled up the land with his fishing hook. The provincial area I reside in is called, Te Matau a Māui the mouth of the fish and more specifically in the township of Ahuriri. These places are tribal lands of Ngāti Kahungunu. Despite these perfectly adequate place names, English colonialists uninventively renamed these respectively as, the North Island, Hawkes Bay, and Napier. The great geographical curve of Hawkes Bay is Māui fishing hook. My ancestors settled in Aotearoa in 1871 and came from Norway, Scotland, and England. I am connected to this land by birth and whānau (family). I am cis-gendered male in partnership with Kelly Forrest with whom together we have helped raise seven children.
My mahi (work) is counselling. I operate a private practice and have worked for many years in both Māori and Pākehā (non-Maori) led social services agencies as a counsellor and consultant. My beginnings in counselling originated from Vipassana meditation as taught by S. N. Goenka which I have studied and practiced since 1990. This interest in the mind / body experiential learning handed down from Siddhartha Gautama over 2500 years ago led to a desire to help others. My training started in the university of life, which I feel has provided me with a richness of life experience, and then in 1999 I began Psychotherapy training. Initially, Narrative therapy was influential to me and over time I have come to appreciate many ways of understanding. My tohu (qualification) is a master’s degree in professional practice and my focus is Response-based practice for counselling, EAP, and supervision. I am not a specialist in a single area, however I do a lot of work in the area of sexualised violence, grief, oppression, EAP, and couples.
Finally, I am a Director and co-founder of RBPAotearoa along with Donny Riki (Ngāpuhi & Ngāti Paoa) and my Hoa Rangatira (life partner) Kelly Forrest.