# Strategy Guide — Scenario 49: Two Houses

**The win, named exactly as in the scenario data: "Ending — One Roof."**

The best outcome: at the March 19th review, both children are ordered placed with their great-aunt Odette, with the uncle-by-weekends Tomas written into the safety plan, sibling Saturdays already documented, and Odette granted notice and participation going forward.

**Graph-walked winning route (verified programmatically against `scenario-49.json`):**

`start → the_date → aunt_call → letter_full → hearing49 → the_study → odettes_house → micah_tooth → certificate → sibling_visits → kira_call → weekend_visit → tomas_check → tomas_job → the_list2 → foster_moms → deshawn_plan → records49 → review_prep49 → continuance_scare → the_review49 → night_before49 → outcome49 → end_oneroof`

Final cash on the walked route: $154 of $190. The outcome gate requires `householdHonest`, `paperChased`, and `auntHeard` — set respectively by the day-one letter disclosing the whole household, hand-delivering the death certificate instead of letting it travel by channel, and invoking Odette's right to be heard.

**Verified law used:** shelter care timing (42 Pa.C.S. § 6332, the Thursday hearing after the Monday-night fire); counsel (42 Pa.C.S. § 6337); the record request (55 Pa. Code § 3130.44(d)); and this batch's newly verified addition — 42 Pa.C.S. § 6336.1 **as amended by Act 48 of 2023**, with the definition at 42 Pa.C.S. § 6302: a *potential kinship care resource* (an individual who meets the emergency-caregiver requirements and has expressed willingness to be a kinship caregiver) must be given timely notice and the right to be heard on her qualifications to provide kinship care, after which the court must decide whether she may receive notice and participate in future hearings. The statute confers no standing absent legal custody, and the scenario says so in the room.

**Traps traced to endings:**

- **The shorter letter** (`letter_short`): omitting Tomas because "weekends hardly count" converts a manageable household fact into a credibility finding when the agency's own search surfaces him. The correction route exists (`omissionCorrected`), but the study spends its trust budget on the omission instead of the placement.
- **Paper by channel** (`certificate_slow`): a nineteen-day document delay is how the route degrades to **"Ending — One Roof, One Still Away (partial)"** — Kira placed, Micah held "pending household stabilization." Nothing was denied; drift decided.
- **"Ending — Sundays Together (partial)":** the thin-file outcome — ordered sibling visits and an open study, but no joint placement. Traced in the debrief to file depth, not to Odette's fitness.

**What no strategy controls:** Tomas's actual record (here a single dismissed charge at nineteen; a heavier record narrows the ending regardless of paperwork) and the judge's weighing of a six-year-old against any household complexity at all. The strategy guarantees the household is judged on its *disclosed* contents — the only version of the truth a family can improve.