Melbourne president Jim Stynes believes that troubled footballer Brendan Fevola can be a positive factor for the Demons and their VFL affiliate Casey.

Melbourne were initially upset that Casey had begun talks to recruit Fevola after he was dumped from the Lions and spent two months in rehabilitation.

As a specialist full-forward it was thought he might take a spot at Casey the Demons wanted to use to develop their young spearheads.

But Stynes said on Thursday he had spoken to Fevola and had a positive response from him.

He said Fevola had agreed he might have to play in different positions but also expressed interest in using his experiences - on and off the field - to help the younger players.

Stynes also said Fevola wanted to get involved in the Reach Foundation, begun by the former Melbourne champion to help young people with problems.

"I've had a chat with Brendan and said there's going to be issues with him playing at any VFL club and he's aware of that," Stynes told AAP.

"He said to me that he is happy to help with the younger guys' development and he's happy to play on different parts of the ground, particularly in the forward set-up - because that's very important for our young players.

"I've got a very good relationship with Brendan and he's been communicating because he wants to be a part of Reach, he wants to help young people.

"Unfortunately for Brendan, there's a part of him that he's not aware of - the ramifications of what he does, he doesn't understand them just yet.

"But he's very positive about getting back to footy and getting back into the AFL, but it's not that easy to get back to that environment.

"He'll have to prove a lot this year to his club that he's going to be positive for any club rather than creating negativity."

Fevola was sacked by Brisbane last month after just one season, having previously been sacked by Carlton.

He has joined the Scorpions in an unlikely bid to persuade a third AFL club to recruit him for next season.

Irish-born Stynes used St Patrick's Day on Thursday to launch Reach's new Open Book Project, a program designed to help struggling young people write publicly about their issues.

And he said he was feeling better than he had since he began his long fight against cancer.

Stynes said that of the 24 tumours he had originally, only two remained and they were not growing.

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