The Eastern Health Board may disband the units which assess applicants for foreign adoptions and which recruit and train foster parents in Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow.
The option is believed to be under consideration in a review currently under way. The review is understood to have no connection with the recent controversy over foreign adoption assessments.
Should the EHB decide to disband the units, 15 social workers would be allocated to local community care offices which would take over responsibility for fostering and foreign adoption.
Sources say social workers fear the move would damage the recruitment of foster parents, with local offices too busy coping with concerns and complaints about the treatment of children.
For the same reason, they say, they fear the assessment of applicants for foreign adoption would be even slower than at present.
The Eastern Health Board would only say that the work of the units is being reviewed and a decision will be made at the end of the month. The purpose of the review is to recommend ways to make the best use of the units.
The fostering resource group has five social workers and a team leader. Nine social workers carry out assessments of couples who wish to adopt foreign children.
A recent EHB report admitted that its social work services are so busy dealing with child abuse cases that they have not the time to assess would-be foster parents quickly.
At the same time, social workers' representatives such as IMPACT and the Irish Association of Social Workers have warned publicly that children are being left in risky situations who should be in foster care.
Social workers, who feel they have been unfairly pilloried in the media because the questions they ask when assessing people for foreign adoption are, of necessity, intrusive, also fear that a side-effect of that controversy will be to put people off going through the very similar assessment for fostering, sources say.
Decentralising fostering assessment, recruitment and training to hard-pressed local offices would further reduce the number of foster parents recruited, sources say.