In January, 2015 domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty was named Australian of the Year for putting the issue on the national agenda.

In February, March and April of that year, three women were murdered by their partners and a man was murdered by his stepson in Canberra.

"We were wondering when this is going to stop," Ms Wilson said. "It was just horrendous really, and also very extreme, such extreme deaths."

The government was forced to respond to an issue that for so long had been behind closed doors, and the family safety hub, coordinator-general's office and a series of measures were put in place.

"It was a swift and ongoing government response to that," Ms Wilson said, but it was a tragedy that it took four deaths for that to happen.

"I would just really love us to not continually respond to tragedy.

"I would love our governments to continue to stay committed to funding and resourcing and keeping this an issue that is really important in our community without having to wait for something like this to happen again."

Ms Wilson said those few months were the hardest days of her career, not only for the impact on the community but for the impact on her staff.

"Clients were ringing in and telling us how their abusive partners were weaponising that, saying 'see what can happen to you'," she said.

"I think that period of time... I didn't really know how we were going to come through it. But we did, and we kept going."

Ms Wilson said in contrast, the best day she had was when they were given the go-ahead to form the Room for Change, an intensive men's behavior change program for perpetrators of domestic violence.

It was just one of the ways the service has evolved throughout Ms Wilson's time at the helm, from solely responding to crisis to being able to intervene before it gets to that point.

"It was a real turning point for the organisation. It was like, yes! We get to try and do meaningful work that is not just about mopping the damage up!"

When she first started in a frontline role with the service, the main supports in place for domestic violence victims were for those fleeing.

"If we're truly listening to what people have to say around what goes on for them, some of they don't necessarily want their partner to not be with them, they just want the violence to stop," Ms Wilson said.

"We have to take that on board, and that's where we've evolved to."

Ms Wilson said there were important resources to help women to separate from their partner, like protection orders and criminal charges, but what wasn't available to Canberrans was the option for the family to stay together, and have the violence stop.

Over the past four years in particular, the team at Domestic Violence Crisis Service has delved into a new areas of support for families. Instead of solely focusing on the women, their view has expanded to include support for children, and services for the perpetrators of violence to help them to change.

The holistic look at the family is one of the most significant changes Ms Wilson has seen in her 15 years at the Domestic Violence Crisis Service.

She is saying goodbye to her role as chief executive of the service to try new challenges in her career. But she said she's leaving on a high, having built up the service to be able to respond to families in new ways.

At this point, Ms Wilson said she's done as much as she can.

"When you do something for a really long time you start to perhaps see it in a certain way, or your own way... I think if you're truly committed to a cause and the work you do, then you have to be open to the possibility that there are other ways. What's important for me is that this organisation is going to be doing what it's doing, and doing it really well, for decades to come."

Ms Wilson said the decision to leave brought with it a "rollercoaster of emotion". She said she was privileged to have worked in the service for so long, following in the footsteps of the "extraordinary women" whose work had often gone unnoticed.

"I've had the privilege of being able to pick up where they left off and now I'd like to think the next generation of men and women can drive that forward.

"Many of those women in the early days... had to build programs and services and refuges on the back of not alot."

"It will be interesting to see where the next phase takes it all," she said.