{"id":14922,"date":"2024-08-12T11:47:59","date_gmt":"2024-08-12T15:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/?post_type=ud_entry&p=14922"},"modified":"2025-07-01T14:09:02","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T18:09:02","slug":"jim-bedford-md","status":"publish","type":"ud_entry","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Bedford, MD"},"content":{"rendered":"

James E. Bedford, MD is the lead child psychiatrist of UNC Youth Behavioral Health and the medical director of 4YBH, the inpatient psychiatric unit for pediatric patients with autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability, or a related neurodevelopmental disability. He is Co-Director of the UNC Program on Neurodevelopmental Psychiatry and a psychiatric consultant at Murdoch Developmental Center. As a specialist in high-quality psychiatric assessment and treatment of people with developmental disabilities and other neuropsychiatric concerns, Dr. Bedford emphasizes strengths, neurodiversity, and maximizing meaning, dignity, and independence. Prior to his work starting the YBH program, he was an attending psychiatrist at the UNC Crisis Stabilization Unit for seven years. His medical school and general psychiatry training was at UNC and his child psychiatry fellowship was at the University of California\u2013Davis MIND Institute. Across settings Dr. Bedford is actively involved in psychiatry resident education, with experience directing a number of didactic courses and supervising and mentoring trainees at a variety of levels. His current research involvement includes an interdisciplinary study investigating a parent advocacy intervention for adolescents and young adults with IDD. As an elected delegate to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Assembly of Regional Organizations, he is actively involved in public policy advocacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16043,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"layout":"","cellInformation":"","apiCallInformation":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"ud_division":[81,77,79,86],"class_list":["post-14922","ud_entry","type-ud_entry","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ud_division-child-adolescent-psychiatry","ud_division-clinician","ud_division-faculty","ud_division-youth-behavioral-health-hospital","odd"],"acf":[],"ud_entry_custom_fields":{"ud_last_name":"Bedford","ud_first_name":"Jim","ud_gallery_summary":"","ud_telephone":false,"ud_email":"","ud_positions":[{"ud_title":"Associate Professor"},{"ud_title":"Lead Child Psychiatrist, UNC Hospitals Youth Behavioral Health"},{"ud_title":"Medical Director, 4YBH Unit"},{"ud_title":"Co-Director, UNC Program on Neurodevelopmental Psychiatry"}],"ud_options":[],"ud_sort_order":""},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2024\/08\/Jim-Bedford-UNC-School-of-Medicine-Psychiatry-Butner3658-Oct-31-2024.jpg","featured_image_medium":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2024\/08\/Jim-Bedford-UNC-School-of-Medicine-Psychiatry-Butner3658-Oct-31-2024-300x200.jpg","featured_image_medium_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2024\/08\/Jim-Bedford-UNC-School-of-Medicine-Psychiatry-Butner3658-Oct-31-2024-768x512.jpg","featured_image_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2024\/08\/Jim-Bedford-UNC-School-of-Medicine-Psychiatry-Butner3658-Oct-31-2024-1024x683.jpg","featured_image_thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2024\/08\/Jim-Bedford-UNC-School-of-Medicine-Psychiatry-Butner3658-Oct-31-2024-150x150.jpg","yoast_head":"\nJim Bedford, MD | Department of Psychiatry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jim Bedford, MD | Department of Psychiatry\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"James E. Bedford, MD is the lead child psychiatrist of UNC Youth Behavioral Health and the medical director of 4YBH, the inpatient psychiatric unit for pediatric patients with autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability, or a related neurodevelopmental disability. He is Co-Director of the UNC Program on Neurodevelopmental Psychiatry and a psychiatric consultant at Murdoch Developmental … Read more\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Department of Psychiatry\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-07-01T18:09:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2024\/08\/Jim-Bedford-UNC-School-of-Medicine-Psychiatry-Butner3658-Oct-31-2024-1024x683.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/\",\"name\":\"Jim Bedford, MD | Department of Psychiatry\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2024\/08\/Jim-Bedford-UNC-School-of-Medicine-Psychiatry-Butner3658-Oct-31-2024.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-08-12T15:47:59+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-01T18:09:02+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2024\/08\/Jim-Bedford-UNC-School-of-Medicine-Psychiatry-Butner3658-Oct-31-2024.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2024\/08\/Jim-Bedford-UNC-School-of-Medicine-Psychiatry-Butner3658-Oct-31-2024.jpg\",\"width\":2048,\"height\":1365,\"caption\":\"Evoto\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Directory Entries\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Jim Bedford, MD\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/\",\"name\":\"Department of Psychiatry\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/#organization\",\"name\":\"UNC Chapel Hill Department of Psychiatry\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2017\/06\/Psychiatry_logo_rgb_h.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2017\/06\/Psychiatry_logo_rgb_h.png\",\"width\":982,\"height\":151,\"caption\":\"UNC Chapel Hill Department of Psychiatry\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jim Bedford, MD | Department of Psychiatry","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jim Bedford, MD | Department of Psychiatry","og_description":"James E. Bedford, MD is the lead child psychiatrist of UNC Youth Behavioral Health and the medical director of 4YBH, the inpatient psychiatric unit for pediatric patients with autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability, or a related neurodevelopmental disability. He is Co-Director of the UNC Program on Neurodevelopmental Psychiatry and a psychiatric consultant at Murdoch Developmental … Read more","og_url":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/","og_site_name":"Department of Psychiatry","article_modified_time":"2025-07-01T18:09:02+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1024,"height":683,"url":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2024\/08\/Jim-Bedford-UNC-School-of-Medicine-Psychiatry-Butner3658-Oct-31-2024-1024x683.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/","url":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/","name":"Jim Bedford, MD | Department of Psychiatry","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2024\/08\/Jim-Bedford-UNC-School-of-Medicine-Psychiatry-Butner3658-Oct-31-2024.jpg","datePublished":"2024-08-12T15:47:59+00:00","dateModified":"2025-07-01T18:09:02+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2024\/08\/Jim-Bedford-UNC-School-of-Medicine-Psychiatry-Butner3658-Oct-31-2024.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2024\/08\/Jim-Bedford-UNC-School-of-Medicine-Psychiatry-Butner3658-Oct-31-2024.jpg","width":2048,"height":1365,"caption":"Evoto"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/jim-bedford-md\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Directory Entries","item":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Jim Bedford, MD"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/","name":"Department of Psychiatry","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/#organization","name":"UNC Chapel Hill Department of Psychiatry","url":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2017\/06\/Psychiatry_logo_rgb_h.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2017\/06\/Psychiatry_logo_rgb_h.png","width":982,"height":151,"caption":"UNC Chapel Hill Department of Psychiatry"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ud_entry\/14922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ud_entry"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ud_entry"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"ud_division","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ud_division?post=14922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}