Mention the word “caregiver” and what is the first thought that comes to mind? Older? Exceptional? Isolated and disconnected? Homebound and unemployed? Each of these stereotypes about care and caregivers is becoming increasingly outdated for the approximately 45 million people in the United States and 6.5 million people in the UK who’ve provided informal, unpaid care to a loved one in the last year, because family caregivers have already begun to transform how people care for one another.

By 2060, Americans 65 and older are expected to increase in number from 46 to 98 million, disrupting our current systems of managing care and all those impacted by care in ways that defy comprehension – including patients, providers, caregivers, families, economies and workplaces. Right now, caregivers don’t simply give care, they are also creators of dynamic communities of support and community-based care delivery systems. As agents of change and influence for those at the margins of society including the disabled, the chronically ill and the aged, informal (non-paid) caregivers are at the center of this nascent social revolution. But these innovations – born from love and connection – are largely overlooked.

Here are just some of the ways in which caregivers are the nexus of a growing ecosystem of care that includes government services, medical providers, neighborhoods, families, and non-profit organizations.

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