Livestream event to showcase winners of Oregon high school media contest focused on young worker safety

Salem (Oregon) - The Oregon high school winners of a video and graphic design contest focused on improving young worker safety and health will be announced during a livestream event at 4 p.m. Tuesday, May 5.

The 2026 media contest, organized by the Oregon Young Employee Safety (O[yes]) Coalition, called on high school students across Oregon to create an ad - through a compelling graphic design or video - that captures the attention of teen workers and convinces them to take the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division's (Oregon OSHA's) heat-illness prevention online course. The idea is to show teen workers that the online course is an essential tool they can use to protect themselves from heat-related hazards while on the job - especially when they're working during the summer months.

Participants got to choose the key message, theme, or tagline they believed would rivet their audience and prompt it to act. The target audience is teen workers or teens who are preparing to work for the first time. To compete, participants submitted either a graphic design or a video that was no more than 90 seconds in length.

The top three entries in each of the two media categories will take home cash prizes ranging from $300 to $500. In each category, the first-place winner's school, club, or organization will receive a matching award. Moreover, O[yes] will use the best of the submissions as ads in its ongoing efforts to improve on-the-job safety and health protections for teens.

The contest sponsors are local Oregon chapters of the American Society of Safety Professionals, Construction Safety Summit, Central Oregon Safety & Health Association, Hoffman Construction Company, Oregon Institute of Occupational Health Sciences at Oregon Health & Science University, Oregon OSHA, SafeBuild Alliance, SAIF Corporation, and the SHARP Alliance.

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About Oregon OSHA:

Oregon OSHA, a division of the Department of Consumer and Business Services, enforces the state's workplace safety and health rules and works to improve workplace safety and health for all Oregon workers. For more information, go to osha.oregon.gov.

The Department of Consumer and Business Services is Oregon's largest business regulatory and consumer protection agency. For more information, go to https://www.oregon.gov/dcbs/.