# Strategy Guide — Scenario 48: The Spare Room

**The win, named exactly as in the scenario data: "Ending — The Spare Room, Occupied."**

The best outcome: at the April 30th review, the completed kinship study is approved, the agency recommends the move, and the court orders Hugo placed with his grandfather Walter that weekend, with the mother's program schedule written into the order.

**Graph-walked winning route (verified programmatically against `scenario-48.json`):**

`start → tell_in_writing → phone_interview → the_list → fix_weekend → clearances → program_letter → checklist → home_visit → hugo_visit → before_review → voss_call → walter_letter → the_review → the_drive → outcome → end_move`

Final cash on the walked route: $95 of $120. The outcome gate requires three flags, all set on this route: `homeFixed` (the lockbox and handrail done before the visit), `checklistKept` (the study's finish line requested in writing and tracked), and `motherStatement` (the mother's one-page statement filed before the review).

**Verified law used:** the record request (55 Pa. Code § 3130.44(d)) — placed on the `program_letter` choice, where the mother requests the case record so the study's paper reaches her too; the foster parent's notice and right to be heard (42 Pa.C.S. § 6336.1), which is how Mrs. Delacroix's support reaches the file. The kinship home study itself is taught as documented process — a checklist of clearances, medical statement, home safety — with no invented statute, per the batch doctrine.

**Traps traced to endings:**

- **The hallway mention** (`tell_thursday`): telling the worker verbally produces the one-line file entry "maternal grandfather may be resource" and loses a week before the written letter repairs it. Recoverable, but it is the scenario's first lesson in miniature.
- **The partial — "Ending — Approved in Principle (partial)":** reached when the study is nearly complete but a piece of paper is still traveling (the cardiologist's fax is the story's example). The move is approved in principle and set fourteen days out. The guide's verdict from the data: studies without a visible finish line finish late; the checklist is the instrument that makes the finish line visible.

**What no strategy controls:** the clearances themselves (a surprise in Walter's background would change the case's questions overnight) and the reviewing judge. Walter's clean record and managed heart condition are the family's facts, not the strategy's products. The strategy's claim is narrower: ready kin should be *findable, studyable, and approvable* on the first pass — never lost to a hallway, a fax number, or an unrequested checklist.