Texas Grandparents Raising Grandchildren

Mercedes Bristol & Grandchildren

Mercedes Bristol is the Executive Director of Texas Grandparents Raising Grandchildren. They started in 2011 because Mercedes Bristol was given her five grandchildren who were removed by CPS. She had to make a decision whether she took her grandchildren or let them go into foster care. She was now raising five grandchildren from three months to 9-years old. She went through many emotions of guilt, disappointment and shame. Without beds for the children, she applied for $1,000 TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) and because her car was over the resource limit, she was denied.


She was still working and did not qualify for other benefits. She found a support group called “Abuelos Y Nietos Juntos”. There she found other grandparents that were in her same situation and found that she was not alone raising grandchildren with no assistance. Four of her five grandchildren had ADHD. One had post-traumatic stress disorder, two had oppositional defiance and one had Reaction Attachment Disorder (RAD). Her grandchildren were going to NISD, where she found the principal and counselors were very supportive.

After being in a support group for two years, she wanted to do more, so she started her first support group at NISD then started to reach out to the community to make awareness of the lack of services for this population of Grandfamilies. She wanted to reach out to other grandparents that were out there not knowing how to reach out for help. 


Six months later, Family Engagement contracted with her to start more support groups. Today, they have multiple contracts with different schools and Alamo Area on Aging to do case management. Texas Grandparents Raising Grandchildren (TXGRG) became a non-profit in 2019 and provides three separate functions: support groups, advocacy, and case management. In advocacy, they educate grandparents how to advocate for themselves. Whether it is at the child’s school when the children have special needs or with Legislation learning who their state representative is and going and telling their story to change laws to help with financial and medical needs. Texas provides the lowest help for grandfamilies and is number one for child removals. 


When grandparents take the grandchildren, most of the time they are placed without legal custody, which makes it difficult to apply for benefits, enroll them in school, make medical or financial decisions. TXGRG works with schools by having the grandparents use The McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act where no child can be left behind. This Act helps provide children with school supplies, uniforms and other resources. About seven out of ten grandparents raising grandchildren do not have custody of the children. Through the foster care system, foster parents can get up to $1,000 a month to care for a foster child, but grandparents receive nothing. 


Mercedes Bristol legislated for several bills. Including HB 4 where if a child is placed by CPS in a kinship, they may be entitled to get half of what foster care provides. Mercedes said, for every one child in foster care, there are 24 children outside the foster care system that are left behind. Mercedes is currently legislating for the income to follow the child. Child Support payments, SSI for the child, Health providers, Medicaid, Food Stamps. When the grandparents take over care of their grandchildren, these benefits are not transferred to the grandparents. She saw several grandparents needing to go to multiple food pantries just to survive. To volunteer, donate, or learn more about Texas Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, visit  www.txgrg.com.

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