Health care professional Hernandez ‘always wants to do more for her people’ | Health

A longtime mental health expert focused on helping tribes build a mental health system post-McGirt is this year’s Cherokee Phoenix Seven Feathers health award recipient.

Cherokee Nation citizen Dr. Crystal Hernandez, of Tulsa, is a psychologist by training who describes herself as “a proud Cherokee citizen and Latina.” She recently left her job as executive director of both the Oklahoma Forensic Center and Tulsa Center for Behavioral Health to focus on contracting work.

“I currently have contracts with several tribal nations helping them build systems of care,” she said. “I want to do something that people really need. What we really need is to build a system, and we can’t keep waiting. To be blessed to have a blueprint that I can help them figure out what pieces they need is to me so rewarding.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark McGirt v. Oklahoma ruling of 2020 – and subsequent state-level cases – held that Congress never disestablished reservations in eastern Oklahoma, effectively handing jurisdiction over criminal cases that involve Native Americans to the tribes and federal government, rather than the state. McGirt had immediate implications for criminal justice across essentially half of Oklahoma.

“Literally, it’s taking a massive justice mental health system and propping it up overnight,” Hernandez said. “The United States had over 100 years to kind of get the sauce right, whereas we hit the ground running that next day. So we’re leaning as we go.”

Hernandez, a mental health administrator for more than 15 years, offers guidance for “culturally rooted and appropriate” systems that offer wellness and services to those who come into contact with the justice system.

“It’s taking everything from adjudicative competency to insanity,” Hernandez said, “but also building out a crisis response. We’re working really hard on emergency detention statutes and helping to get individuals into treatment rather than arrest and incarceration.”

Originally from California, Hernandez moved to Oklahoma five years ago.

“I’ve always been in a helping profession and always want to do more for people,” she said, “and I’ve been helping several of the tribal nations for no money at all since I got here. Any projects, anything I can help them with, I always do. With Cherokee Nation, I’m on the first-ever Cherokee autism task force that the chief put together. That’s a huge deal and a step forward in saying we need to create systems that better serve our autistic individuals and their loved ones.”

The mother of an autistic child, Hernandez also serves on the Autism Foundation of Oklahoma’s board of directors. She is co-host on the Black Feathers podcast, which focuses on Native American experiences with intellectual disabilities, learning disabilities, mental health, anxiety disorders and health care access, among other topics.

Hernandez earned a doctoral degree in forensic psychology and a master’s degree in business administration. She has received awards and acknowledgements from the Oklahoma Public Health Association, Southern Plains Tribal Health Board, League of Women Voters of Tulsa, Oklahoma Department of Mental Health & Substance Abuse Services, The ARC of Oklahoma, the University of Phoenix and others.