Indigenous child begs to be returned to her foster parents in heart-wrenching video

Heart-wrenching moment Indigenous child begs to be returned to foster parents who cared for her since she was a toddler

  • Indigenous child begged to stay with foster parents
  • Milly fled various care arrangements 11 times
  • She asks for ‘normal childhood’ in heart-breaking clip 

A distraught Indigenous child has begged to be returned to her foster parents in a heartbreaking video. 

The clip, filmed last year, shows a little girl named Milly asking if she can return to living with Tom and Marie at their home in the Northern Territory. 

The couple have questioned why Milly was taken from their care after she ran away from 11 other care arrangements in her desperation to be with them.  

Her desperation is clear in the video where, in tears, she says: ‘I feel like I’m never going to be a normal kid with a normal childhood. I just want my family, I just want my (foster parents) and my brother back together like things were.

‘Can you please make this possible, please?’ 

Despite her emotional pleas, Milly was whisked away from her foster parents and bounced between nearly a dozen homes.  

She continued to run away and and begged to be returned to Tom and Marie, who have cared for her since she was a toddler. 

‘She’d run away from wherever they put her and come back to us and then we’d have to force her to leave. It was horrendous,’ Tom told The Weekend Australian

‘But after about the 11th time we said we can’t do this anymore. I had to say, “I am not going to make you get in the car. I’m not going to send you away anymore”.’

Police and case workers attended when Milly refused to leave her foster parents, but they were unable to get her into the car and decided to let her stay. 

She has finally been allowed to stay with her foster parents, with her birth mother allowed to visit whenever she is sober.

Her birth grandfather and aunt are supportive of Milly staying with Tom and Marie, because they know where she lives and can visit her whenever they like. 

However, despite the happy outcome for Milly, her grandfather is concerned that no-one knows where her younger brother Benny is.

The heartbreaking clip, filmed last year, shows Milly begging to be allowed to stay with Tom and Marie at their home in the Northern Territory

Milly's birth grandfather and aunt are supportive of her staying with Tom and Marie, because they know where she lives and can visit her whenever they like (stock image)

Milly’s birth grandfather and aunt are supportive of her staying with Tom and Marie, because they know where she lives and can visit her whenever they like (stock image)

No one tells us where he is. I want to see his face, to talk face-to-face. He needs to know where we are,’ he said. 

Marie says they have a close relationship with Milly’s birth family. 

‘We knew we couldn’t raise these kids without them. We always said to them we would look after these kids as long as they needed us to,’ she said. 

The couple became foster parents to simply help children in need. 

‘We said we would be there for these kids as long as they needed us. We made a lifetime commitment,’ Marie said.