Career change after a layoff, where to begin? (update)

I want to move from nurse's aide to something with more stability. There are 8 people counting on me, so I am trying to be careful. I have good customer skills and I am comfortable with spreadsheets. How did you start?

Thanks for writing this out. I went through something close to it 6 months ago, and it got easier once I kept a simple log of every call and form.