In 2014, the Irvine Unified School District (IUSD), founded the Emergency Preparedness Interagency Collaborative (EPIC), a joint partnership between public safety agencies and public and private education institutions in the Greater Irvine area. IUSD recognized early on, while evaluating our emergency management program, that effective planning and development is not done in isolation and that it is critical for IUSD to participate regularly in high-level discussions with our community partners regarding emergency planning.
Therefore, the intention around the development of EPIC, which is the group's purpose statement, is to build interagency collaboration through continuous education and partnerships in emergency management for safe school campuses. EPIC partners share best practices and lessons learned from incidents throughout the country.
According to county and city officials, there is no other education partnership like EPIC in Orange County and it is rare to find a collaborative such as this in the state or nation. To learn more, visit the EPIC website at EPICirvine.org.