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About Ashley Williams
Universal Design and Home Safety Consultant • Principal-led practice • Cherry Hill, NJHear It in Her Own Words
I'm Ashley Williams. I run every home safety assessment, every report review, and every discovery call at Serenity Smart Homes personally.
Serenity is a principal-led consultancy. I am the only person who walks your home, asks the questions, and writes the report. There is no team that I send instead. When you book an assessment, you book me.
My work sits at the intersection of universal design, home safety, and smart home technology. I assess how your home is working for the people who actually live in it. I identify what is putting someone at risk, or what is making daily life harder than it needs to be. And I write you a prioritized plan that you own. I do not sell products. I do not install systems. I do not bill monthly. I assess first, recommend second, and coordinate the implementation with vetted specialists when the work calls for them.
I'm a consultant, not an integrator.
Most people in this field make their money on the install. I make mine on the assessment, the written plan, and the relationship that follows.
That distinction shapes everything about how I work. When you hire an integrator, you are hiring someone whose business model depends on you buying hardware from them. When you hire me, you are hiring someone whose only product is a written plan that prioritizes what your household actually needs. If the answer is not technology, the report says that.
The plan that you receive at the end of the assessment is yours. You can hand it to any contractor, any installer, or any occupational therapist that you already trust. You can also bring it back to me, and I will coordinate the implementation with people that I have already vetted. Either way, the decisions stay with you, and the report does not expire when the conversation ends.
What I do
- Walk your home, in person or by guided video, using a 230-point instrument aligned to CLIPP, CAPS, and SHSS frameworks
- Write a prioritized report that names top safety concerns, quick wins for this week, and longer-term recommendations with rough cost ranges
- Specify technology when technology is the right answer, defaulting to local control, privacy-first architecture, and no subscriptions
- Coordinate warm referrals to occupational therapists, physical therapists, licensed contractors, and installers when the work calls for them
- Walk you through the report in a 30 to 45 minute review call, so that the document becomes a sequenced plan you can actually use
What I don't do
- Install hardware or perform construction work
- Make clinical diagnoses; that is the work of physicians, occupational therapists, and physical therapists
- Sell monitoring subscriptions or compete with ADT-style security companies
- Recommend technology that depends on the cloud for safety-critical functions
- Write a generic checklist; every report is built for the household at the address on the cover page
The Home Safety and Technology Assessment Is the Flagship.
Everything that I do starts here. The assessment is a structured walkthrough that surfaces risks, opportunities, and the friction points that show up in your daily routines.
The 230-point instrument covers the entry and exterior, circulation paths, kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, living spaces, whole-home systems, the technology ecosystem that you already have, sensory environment, cognitive and executive function support, and caregiver integration. Two appendix instruments activate when they apply: a dementia-specific companion when there is a clinical trigger, and a child safety section when there are children in the household.
What you receive is a written report that arrives within five business days of the walkthrough. The report leads with top priorities, identifies quick wins that you can act on this week, sequences longer-term recommendations with rough cost ranges, and names the specialists that I would bring in if I were running the project. A plain-language summary page sits at the front, so that you can share it with a sibling, a parent, or a partner without having to translate.
Six tracks exist so that the assessment matches your household, and not the other way around. There is a Planning Ahead track for adults living in place. A Neurodivergent Household track. A version that adds child safety on top of the neurodivergent work. A Multigenerational track that maps competing needs across generations. A Remote Safety Snapshot for households outside South Jersey. And an Accessible Vacation Rental Audit for short-term rental operators.
My Credentials as a Universal Design and Home Safety Consultant
Every one of these is current, verifiable, and held in my name.
CLIPP
Certificate for Living in Place Professional, issued by the Living In Place Institute. Credential number C00967.
Loxone Silver Partner
Certified to design and specify Loxone whole-home automation systems, a commercial-grade and locally controlled platform.
CEDIA Member
Active member of the global trade association for residential technology, accountable to its standards of practice and continuing education requirements.
NJ SBE Certified
State of New Jersey Small Business Enterprise, Categories 1 and 4.
NJ MWBE Certified
State of New Jersey Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise certification.
NJ HIC Licensed
New Jersey Home Improvement Contractor License, number 13VH13929000.
Twenty years of enterprise technology, translated into homes.
Before I started Serenity, I spent more than two decades inside Verizon, Cisco, ServiceNow, and Fastly, building and supporting infrastructure where downtime had real consequences. I learned how to design for failure modes, how to keep sensitive data inside the perimeter it belongs in, and how to translate deeply technical decisions into plain-language tradeoffs that an executive could actually act on.
That background changes the questions that I ask during an assessment. I ask what happens when the internet goes out. I ask where each device sends its data, and who has access to it on the other end. I ask whether the system that you already have can keep working five years from now, after the manufacturer has changed hands or sunset an app. Most of the answers that I find are not visible in a product brochure, and they shape the report that you receive.
I am also a former crisis counselor. That experience taught me how to hold space for hard conversations, how to listen for what someone is not saying, and how to walk through a home with a family member who is grieving the version of the household that they expected.
I built this practice because I needed it.
I am AuDHD. I was diagnosed at thirty-four, after years of knowing that something was different but not having the language for it. I am also raising a neurodivergent child, solo. I know the morning where the routine falls apart at the kitchen transition, because the fridge has been left open since two in the morning and the cereal is warm. I know the bedtime that becomes a negotiation about every step in the sequence. I know the specific exhaustion of running a household where executive function is in short supply and the sensory environment is loud whether you want it to be or not.
Most of the people that design home technology do not live this. It shows in the apps. It shows in the setup flows. It shows in the failure modes, which are loud and disruptive at the exact moments that you have the least bandwidth to deal with them. I built this consultancy because the work that I wanted for my own household did not exist, and when I went to find it, the closest thing was an integrator pitching a six-figure install.
I disclose this part of my background because it is load-bearing in the work, not because it is a credential. If you are running a neurodivergent household, you do not need to translate yourself for me, and you do not need to brace for the explanation that usually follows. The assessment already accounts for sensory environment, routine anchoring, executive function support, and elopement risk as a default, not as a special add-on.
Who I Work With as a Home Safety Consultant
Each household has its own page. Each page leads with the version of this work that is built for that situation.
Adults Planning to Stay in Their Homes
Healthy adults who are planning before a health event forces the issue. People who are supporting a parent's home from a distance. Couples in their fifties who are renovating once and want to do it right. The Planning Ahead track covers the full 230-point walkthrough, the written report, and the report review call.
Neurodivergent Households
Autistic and ADHD adults. Families with neurodivergent children. Households where sensory environment, executive function, or elopement risk shows up in daily life. The Neurodivergent track adds sensory and executive function profiling, and the report includes a 30-day check-in call.
Multigenerational Households
Aging adults and neurodivergent members under the same roof. Households where multiple generations have distinct and sometimes competing requirements. The Multigenerational track maps the overlap, and sequences recommendations that serve the whole household, not just the loudest problem.
Households Outside South Jersey
People who are calling from out of state about a parent's home. Households anywhere who want professional eyes on their home without waiting. The Remote Safety Snapshot is a structured 60 to 75 minute video walkthrough, paired with an intake questionnaire and a standard photo set, and a written report scoped to what was assessed.
Accessible Vacation Rental Operators
Short-term rental hosts with accessibility claims in their listings, or hosts who have never had a formal audit. The Accessible Vacation Rental Audit is a three-part instrument: compliance baseline, universal design audit, and a technology and privacy audit of what is installed against what the listing says.
Occupational and Physical Therapists
I work with OTs and PTs as referral partners that go both directions. If a client of yours has a home modification or technology question that sits outside your scope, I am happy to be the consult that you call. If a client of mine needs clinical assessment that sits outside my scope, the referral goes back to you.
In-person service area: South Jersey, Southeastern Pennsylvania, and Northern Delaware. The remote track is available nationally and internationally.
Industry and South Jersey Community Affiliations
The professional bodies that I belong to, and the local organizations that I show up for.
What Home Safety Assessment Clients Say
"Ashley shows up to each conversation with a startling amount of knowledge on the subject, insights into how things can connect that I would never see, and the patience of a saint. I can't recommend her highly enough."
"I chose Serenity Smart Homes because you promote a private network where I have full control. I can keep control of all my data locally. I don't want to load anything into the cloud."
"Her expertise and ability to explain concepts in 'non-techie' terms is impressive. I highly recommend her services to anyone needing assistance with smart home technology or IT solutions."
Start with a conversation.
The free 30-minute discovery call is a fit check, not a sales call. I will ask about what your household actually needs, and I will tell you honestly whether the assessment makes sense. If it does not, I will tell you that too, and I will point you toward whoever can help.
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