I successfully helped a woman in a similar situation a few years ago. We thought what would help the most was to become familiar with the parts of a modern framework (controllers, ORMs, etc). She used _Agile_Web_Development_With_Rails to build a sample site, and then built another site with jhipster, studying the generated artifacts. This took about 4 months, and we met every other week so that she could ask questions and we could plot out where she should concentrate her efforts.

After that effort, she was able to get a job with a large stable company.